A Cord of Three Strands
by Little Locust Heart
Summary: Seven Years before the Fourth Great Shinobi War, Rin was resurrected in secret. She appears on the battlefield after Obito's change of heart, and the newly reunited Team Minato must save her from a fate worse than death. Can three people so broken by suffering be put back together again after all these years, or will they destroy themselves in trying?
1. In Her Name

_Author's Note: As every story on this site is a testament to wish fulfillment, this is mine; the only Naruto story I ever wanted to write. As inspired by Naruto's themes of unconditional love, forgiveness, reconciliation, and pacifism, my one wish would have been to see how these tender themes would have been handled in the extreme case of Team Minato, whose fragile lives were torn apart by the greatest darknesses of the shinobi world._

This is my attempt to tell the story that stayed in my heart, long after the war was over.

 _Additional Note: This story retains all canon up until the juubi's extraction from Obito._

* * *

 **A Cord of Three Strands**

Chapter I

 _In Her Name_

* * *

It was the height of battle, and then it was all undone.

He held his hand up to the sky, obscuring the moon. Rattled to his feeble core, Obito Uchiha considered what feelings had just transpired inside him… Feelings that even a teenage boy could see, plain as day.

Despite the mask that sealed his face and intentions away, was he really so transparent all this time?

Was it really all that futile?

All those years in silent, blood-soaked revolution, staying the course towards the finish line where his tormented soul would find peace. Years of enduring the nightmares, the flashbacks, the terrors he suppressed in dark and quiet hours, simply for the moment when all would be made right.

And here, at the finish line, his feet were cut from under him.

The end would justify the means. And here Obito lie, as he had always been: the orphaned son in a clan of prodigies that would never claim him; a heart so big that when darkness befell it he had taken the whole world straight to hell.

But that hell was a necessary evil, a waiting room he must subject the world unto while he procure the antidote. And any suffering he need release upon the weary world would be worth it for the cure he was crafting with his own two hands.

And in the moment of his rising, of becoming the juubi's jinchuriki, the same fate that he hoped to christen upon the world had visited him, and he found that what he had forced himself into believing he wanted most was a sham.

All those means would never erase the hell of loss. All those means would give rise to a pain that would birth a thousand Obitos. All these years of tireless walking, and he was never one step closer to peace.

There never was an end, all these wasted years.

When the juubi's power tried to rip him from his nature, he couldn't lose himself, as much of a waste as he was. And more importantly, he couldn't lose his friend, his sensei… He could never lose her.

 _Oh Rin_! His thin line between light and darkness, her fragile body that held back all the pain of his world. Her purity and good-heartedness laid bare before him as Obito, in abject horror, fully realized what his actions had caused.

Precious Rin, visibly distressed when he and Kakashi called each other _names_.

And in _her_ name, he had set fire to the world.

His body began trembling in emotions he had pillaged nations to keep at bay, but one unexpected feeling surged above all others as the weight crashed upon him.

Fear.

The cause to which he had so blindly devoted himself was over. Even if Madara's plan were to somehow succeed, the veil of pain which had colored his world was now gone and he saw things clearly… Things he had been too afraid to see for all of his adult life.

His dream was to protect. He displayed it as a boy by all the elderly he aided, all the sick he nursed. He valued the lives of those helpless to care for themselves. He would have been beaten black and blue before he would have allowed anyone to harm a gray hair on their lowly heads.

This was Obito Uchiha. The hope of Hokage wasn't for fame or glory, but rather, that he might be entrusted with the task of caring for everyone. And if any pride were garnered by his position, he would devastate his own body in defense of the world simply so his name might fall on her ears in passing, and she might love him.

Obito Uchiha's one true dream was the care of all.

Obito Uchiha's one devoted pursuit destroyed the entire world.

A broken man in body, a shattered man in heart, he considered everything he had done.

In pursuit of Tsuki no Me, he had slaughtered more than the whole of Konohagakure that he had so yearned to protect. Even now, their faces played out before him, the sounds of death, the names they uttered before they died.

And for the first time since he was a boy, Obito Uchiha was able to clearly see the world.

Not only was his life an absolute contradiction to that hope from all those years ago, there was no way left for atonement. Even if he could muster enough strength to use the Rinnegan for a noble end, redemption was seventeen years out of his reach. All those deaths, all this suffering! Whatever was beyond death, he could never find peace. He didn't deserve it. And if there was a place Rin was, he would desecrate her name by entering in. Even if an angel and a devil found one another, where would they live?

In this moment of clarity, at the end of all things, he realized a damnable truth: Tsuki no Me would never reunite him with Rin; and now, in death, hell would be too good for him and Heaven was a slum for Rin.

Tears streamed down his scarred and battered face. If he was finding himself again at the end, the only part of him that stayed true, that followed like a loyal dog, was the part of himself he most hated. Whether innocent or evil, he was still the hopeless failure that ruined everything he touched, and nothing in the world would ensure the destruction of a thing more than Obito willing it to succeed.

Kakashi appeared suddenly, kunai in hand, resolved to do what should have been done so long ago. But then, sensei was there. _Sensei_! Another casualty by his hand.

The two teammates began talking. And men who had moved in the darkness, taken on masks of Akatsuki and ANBU to hide their grief, lowered them to the ground.

Kakashi saw, to astounding pain, mannerisms before him that he believed to have been buried forever beneath the Kannabi Bridge.

Obito looked into the eye he saw in the mirror ever day of his young life and mournfully consoled himself in the fact that at least one aspect of who he was had been used for good, even if it had to be wholly divorced from his being to do so.

As sensei's son ran to meet the battle head-on, Obito's sadness was pulled from his confessions to Kakashi and channeled into another thought. How tragic that this boy, this hero, could so appallingly remind him of himself.

This orphan who dreamed of becoming Hokage, who desired nothing more than to protect others and find beauty in a life that had so horribly abused him. Their personalities, their hopes… Sensei's orphan had grown into a son that the whole village would claim as their own while Obito, the bastard, would die on the battlefield flanked by the best friend whom he had made his enemy and the master who was dead by his hand.

As the former teammates watched Naruto disappear into battle, Obito's self-loathing was interrupted by Kakashi's voice, tired and holding the deeper sadnesses of a stricken life,

"He does so remind me of you, Obito."

Obito only stared at the disappearing silhouette of their master's son, too burdened to say one thing more. After a weary pause, Kakashi continued, a considerate caution in his tone, but the deeper need to unburden himself of demons no other audience in the world, before this moment, would have fully understood. With a sigh, he lowered his eyes to the ground.

"And Sakura, she reminds me of Rin."

Minato, who had been staring away from them, turned and lowered his eyes towards his former pupils. The pause was long and still, so quiet that all three could hear the dust kicked up in battle begin to settle around them. Unexpectedly, Obito spoke first,

"Every girl in this world has a shadow of Rin," he spoke so gently it was just above a whisper, "And every place I've ever been is a backdrop to her ghost. I have walked this earth in silence, and in that silence, I could sometimes hear her voice."

No man moved. To many, the battlefield might seem an unlikely place to unburden one's most fragile treasures, but the most seasoned shinobi knew that nowhere else could such tenderness land in the midst of men and be handled with such reverence. And on the eve of this battle, which might mark the end of them all, the reunited Team Minato all understood that no others, living or dead, needed to speak of Rin Nohara in the way that they did.

"What does she say when you hear her?" Kakashi asked, gently.

There was a pause so long that Kakashi wondered if Obito might have passed. But when he answered, there was a surprising strength in his words.

"Do you remember that D-rank mission we did near the Nara lands, right before you made chuunin? It was for an elderly couple who had a farm near the forest's edge?"

Kakashi, who had an incredible memory even before his sharingan copied the world, strained to remember.

"Did someone lose a cat?"

Sensei huffed in quiet amusement while the corner of Obito's mouth curled upward ever so slightly.

"Forget the Hidden Leaf, we should have been the Hidden Cat Village." Obito said with a hint of levity to his aspirating voice.

His comment struck Kakashi unexpectedly, both comically and yet, so horribly sad. This was the kind of snide comment Obito used to make when complaining about cumbersome missions, an attitude that Kakashi secretly found to be both annoying and amusing. And here, years past his youthful agitation, he could see this light-hearted, comical aspect of his old friend come into total maturity. It was still so uniquely Obito, but with finesse and delivery that had progressed with his age. And Kakashi found it so odd that such a human trait could have so wholly developed in the menacing darkness behind his mask, in the ranks of terrorists and the blood of genocide.

How strange, how sad… But how honored he felt to see such a thing before he died. _Oh, Obito… Wouldn't it have been a better life if we could have grown together?  
_

Obito continued, "You were gone, looking for the cat. You felt burdened by Rin and me, so you struck out alone. I was mostly renovating the old man's barn while Rin tended to the old animals. They didn't have a lot of livestock but every one of their animals were sick. Rin spent all day with them, healing them and tending to their wounds. I remember thinking that if she would ever agree to marry me, we could take care of every old person and every old animal in Konoha between the two of us."

Obito, terrorist and warlord, smiled almost serenely for the first time in years, even as the tears bit his eyes,

"And I remember that day, all the love I had for her somehow tripled. I would have done anything if it could have just brought me one step closer to being able to love her more."

Both Kakashi and Minato stared at the ground. The pure, innocent Obito they knew and loved contrasted with the oceans of blood on the hands of the monster before them. The comparison would have chipped away at their ideals and their consciences if it wasn't all so acutely devastating.

"After exhausting herself with the animals all day, she insisted on helping in the barn. She was up on the rafters, patching a hole in the ceiling. She was still new to medical ninjutsu, so she didn't realize how quickly her chakra had been depleted. She blacked out for a few seconds. Never in my life had I been faster, and I caught her before she hit the ground."

His eyes wandered to a past further than the stars, his voice quieted and slowed.

"I… I held her closely, trembling. Even after she woke up, I couldn't loosen my grip on her. I don't know if the fall would have seriously injured her, but it didn't matter. I was so shaken by my desire to protect her, that even the idea that she might have been hurt and I couldn't save her from it destroyed me. When she woke I was grasping her to me, my heart beating out of my chest. I had… tears."

At the punctuation of the word, his own spilled over, and both his teammate and his sensei saw the same torn expression Rin had that moment in the barn, so many years ago.

"She touched my face. And for the first time, I didn't choke or pull away from her. I buried myself in her hair so she wouldn't see me crying, even though I knew her hands were wet. During this time, you came back with the cat, Kakashi. You walked in, told me to be a man and stop crying. Then you left. Normally, I would have defended myself or insulted you, but that day, I couldn't even pull myself together.

When I finally pulled away to look at her, she was beaming up at me through her weariness. She said to me, 'Obito, you have a heart full of love that motivates everything you do. And when all the world only glances at you, remember that I will always _see_ you.'"

He stopped abruptly, overwhelmed by the memory he had played in his head for eighteen years and never spoken aloud. Kakashi, surprisingly, felt his own eyes sting. Obito's story had taken him back to Rin. After years of relying on his own memories of her that had become stale and anticipated, new life was shot into her by Obito's words and he could see her both anew and how she always had been. She was sunshine and optimism. She always saw the very best and believed so strongly that you found yourself believing, too. Rin was the last sun that set before his world went dark beneath the mask of the ANBU.

" _Rin_." Kakashi whispered before he even knew he had said it out loud.

Obito began stammering.

"I had to hold onto that memory above all of the others. I couldn't bear to think of other things she had told me… They always reminded me of how far I had drifted from who she believed in. When Naruto was talking to me, that's why I listened… Not because his words were that persuasive on their own merit, but because he was unearthing the truths of her words I had buried a million times since her death. She believed I could be Hokage, she didn't want me to hide my wounds because…

Because she was always watching me! Oh God, Kakashi, sensei… Can she see me now? Can she see what I've become? What I did in her name? I deserve to rot in hell for the things that I've done!"

Obito gasped and shuddered with crushing grief.

Sensei turned his back completely and hung his head down low, while Kakashi brought his hand to cover his own heavy face as Obito cried.

 _He was right_.

And there was nothing either man could say that could alleviate the weight that was crushing him right now. That was the most damnable part of it all.

Suddenly, the wind changed, and in a second, Kakashi was on his feet as Minato fell into ready stance. They both fell in defense in front of Obito, who was so weak all he could do was shift his swollen eyes towards the men who had been both his greatest allies and enemies.

Obito shook his sadness, although it threatened to consume him in a way the juubi never could. If he had any hope of ever justifying Rin or bringing a shred of hope to all the despair he had perpetuated, he would have to be alert to see what might still be needed of him.

The wind whipped up a cloud of dust in front of them, and Kakashi held stiff in a posture that last Obito remembered trembled in a much younger, more compact body.

He was ripped from his thoughts as he saw a tiny silhouette slowly walking through the dust storm.

Before what little chakra he had left registered a single thing about the oncoming threat,

before he could make out the details of the body or color of the clothing,

before he could be further distressed by the way Kakashi's defense suddenly dropped or by the fervor in which sensei snapped his head back to look at Obito…

and before the auburn hair, whipping wildly,

before his sharingan flared, zeroing in on the violet markings of her face or the brown softness of her large eyes, Obito knew.

He knew beyond ninjutsu or genjutsu or senjutsu.

In his heart, the one so large, the one baptized in darkness and resurrected in shame, the one beating against his chest so hard right now that it deafened his ears to Kakashi's words,

 _he knew_.

With the last ounce of strength in his body, he bolted upright as she walked into view in front of them, eyes blank and unfamiliar.

He would have known her if he was blind.

 _Rin!_


	2. The Devil Himself

**A Cord of Three Strands**

Chapter II

 _The Devil Himself_

* * *

Slack-jawed. Confusion. Disbelief.

Genjutsu! Was it genjutsu?

His sharingan flared as it never had. And yes, he analyzed her as he would observe an opponent or intricate jutsu. But as his eye roamed over her, he felt the dissective power of his sharingan was little more than an excuse to drink in every last detail of her. _And oh...  
_  
the protrusion of her bone at the wrist

 _and the_

slight inward turning of her feet as she walked

 _and_

the flash of her neck as she

breathed in

breathed out

it pumped the blood to her heart

 _To her beating heart!_

His tongue was mud. He couldn't say a word.

Kakashi stuttered, his own muteness finding words halfway through the screaming in his head,

"…not genjutsu."

He did not shake. He did not move. From where Obito sat, Kakashi's posture had barely faltered at all, save the drooping of his shoulders and looseness of his balled-up fists.

But his coolness, his sense of calm, his level-headed analytical abilities were set aflame by the interruption of her slow, steady walk towards them through the dust.

Minato-sensei added, stunned but calm,

"This isn't edo-tensei, either."

And in the strangest of ironies, the three men that knew her best – two who had been lost to the world until this very night – stood in perfect silence as she approached and stood before them.

It was definitely Rin, no mistake about it. She was the same, and she was different. She was somewhat taller. Her slender arms and legs, now elongated. The curves of her body that had always politely suggested were now bawdy explanations. And yet she was still so slight, so tiny, as if her whole body tucked into itself to give the world more room.

Kakashi's eyes traveled her womanly form, trying to make sense of it all.

Obito's eye was paralyzed by her face.

She was youthful, far more youthful than he or Kakashi, but she was much older than the girl who's every detail he had seared into his brain.

Her hair was much longer now. When had it grown? Her shortest layer framed her face close to the length she kept it when they were young, bringing him an acute ache inside of his chest at how changed, and yet, how familiar she was. Her youthful features were more angular now, though the softness at the edges remained.

Her brown doe eyes wandered to each face in front of her, then landed squarely on him. The questions clattering and crashing inside his head quieted beneath her gaze, beneath those long, thick lashes he had last seen – up close and alive – dangling with tears for him.

Sparing his former students from questions they didn't know how to ask, Minato broke the silence.

"How are you here, Rin?"

She kept her gaze locked on Obito for a few seconds longer before she turned to her sensei. Minato noticed that she looked at him and looked through him at once.

"She's here to remind Obito of his responsibilities."

The commanding voice jolted them, unaware of the presence that was now appearing before them.

Madara walked casually from the dust that had obscured him. He placed his arm loosely around Rin's shoulder.

Obito was floundering, no hold to even grasp onto, no form to all that thundered inside. At the sight of Madara touching Rin, he felt a surge of protection and panic bubble up and explode,

"What do you… How is she… What did you do? Don't touch her! Is she a genjutsu? _What the hell did you do?_ Get away from her!"

A bemused chuckle escaped his grin as he slightly tightened the grasp on her shoulder to spite Obito.

"Take a journey with me, if you will, foolish grandson of mine. Remember all that purity of heart you once held, how genuinely kind and caring you were? I was certain that watching your little love ripped apart before you would drive all those feelings away from you. I was sure you would desire to awaken the Infinite Tsukiyomi to restore the world not only for her, but for everyone who had lost as you had. But what I wasn't so certain about was your allegiance to me. I placed the curse tag inside of you – as it seems you figured out - so you wouldn't defy me, but even that bit of jutsu doesn't have the power to make you revive me.

I was always concerned that somewhere along the line, your twisted husk of a heart might feel remorse for your actions. With most darknesses, I never had a doubt about the trajectory of their descent. With you, I believed you might one day doubt your path and find a way to abandon it, leading my hope to ruin. However, I always have a plan, and I always have more than one person on which to rely.

You might have taken my mantle and walked the earth as my will, but Black Zetsu is my will incarnate, and I communicated a contingency plan to him, should he ever feel that you were close to abandoning Tsuki no Me.

Some years back, he felt you were in danger of leaving the fold. He communicated privately with Nagato, acting as if he was working on behalf of Tobi's orders. He explained that not enough was known about the power of the rinnegan for Tobi to safely place his full faith that Nagato could deliver his end of the deal. Zetsu explained that in order for your trust to be fully extended to him, Nagato needed to perform a resurrection meeting specifications that he would provide.

Years ago, I chose Nagato to house my rinnegan for me, knowing full well that his Uzumaki blood allowed him levels of chakra far beyond other shinobi. I believed that while a single resurrection for another might be potentially fatal to them, Nagato wouldn't be so affected. So when he, unbeknownst to all others aside from Black Zetsu and Konan, resurrected this little girl right here, Nagato understood it to be a promise of his abilities to carry Tsuki no Me to completion and gain your total confidence in him.

Black Zetsu took her to an undisclosed location, harboring her if the time came when you would betray me, Obito. At the time of her resurrection he was preparing her to use against you, but your potential betrayal was abandoned and you ended up never leaving the fold.

Today, when you defied me, when it was made clear that it was not you, but Kabuto, that had summoned me and that it was not even in your intentions to resurrect me at all, I communicated this backstabbing and had Zetsu retrieve Rin from the life she had been leading up until now.

Even though her resurrection was unnecessary all those years ago, it absolutely couldn't have worked out better. I see a curious expression all over that grotesque face of yours, and it's definitely not the one you would be wearing were this lass still thirteen years old!"

Madara laughed, more than delighted by the sense of satisfaction he felt when every angle had been covered and each contingency anticipated. More than that, the ghastly expression on that traitor's face thoroughly sealed this moment in total perfection.

Kakashi interrupted,

"But what did you _do_ to her?"

Madara grinned again, catching Rin's chin and turning it up with his finger.

"I've placed her under a genjutsu of sorts. She hears and sees you through a distorted reality, as if hearing and seeing the world from deep under water. I have her in this state as an act of benevolence to you, Obito. In one instant I can break it. And when I do, she will see, fully, what you have become. She will understand the things you have done. She will lay her lovely eyes upon you as you explain that your entire life has been a marinade in the blood of the innocent. And when she dies once more in front of you, in a much slower and more gruesome way than ever before, any shred of love she held in her heart for you will have been completely destroyed."

Madara's hand lingered beneath her chin for a moment, then he snatched her throat brutally. Kakashi fell immediately into attack posture. Obito jumped to his feet in a mad scramble, but Minato appeared quickly in front of him to hold him back.

"In ten seconds, I release the genjutsu. She sees your monstrous face, learns what you have become. And then, after that, the slow disemboweling begins." He jerked Rin's ragdoll body in one cruel motion, accentuating his point.

"All of this and more, Obito, unless you use the rinnegan to restore me. Trade your worthless, used-up, refuse of a life for hers, and no harm will come to her. She can slip into the Infinite Tsukiyomi and dream of her girlhood friend, Obito Uchiha, who lived a life of kindness and died a hero. If you don't agree to it, I will personally make the sad remainder of your life and hers a veritable hell before sending you all there myself!'

Madara's threat hung sickeningly in the air, intensified by the whipping wind and dust storm blowing around him as he tightened his grip around Rin's small throat. Her face, emotionless this whole time, started to show signs of distress by the creasing of her brows as her face flushed crimson.

Kakashi, never dropping his defensive stance, twisted his spine to look at Obito fully.

Obito's mouth hung open and his eyes flashed with the horror of this impossible decision. He had only acquiesced his dark path moments before and now his new resolve was already tested to the limit.

Kakashi was sure that more than ten seconds had passed, yet no one said anything and no one dared move. The value of a good ninja was the ability to make quick decisions in dire moments, yet this situation was of a more personal nature than either of them had ever dreamed they could possibly face again. Team Minato was frozen, except for the occasional squirm from Rin as Madara dug his fingers into her pale throat.

Rin's face began to take on an ever more troubled expression as her airway crushed in. And whether it was mere circumstance or a flash of recognition beneath the heavy blankets of sedation, Rin whimpered in pain and her slow eyes crawled to those of Obito Uchiha. A single tear rolled down her purple face.

Obito went mad.

Some otherworldly surge of power came over him as he broke from Minato's grasp and charged at Madara. Even with the unfathomably low levels of chakra, Obito would have reached Madara in a flash had a much stronger Kakashi not thrown his whole weight into restraining Obito himself.

"No, Obito! We do-"

" _It's Rin!_ _It's Rin, Kakashi!_ " Obito spat as he desperately clawed against Kakashi's restraint.

"Do you actually trust Madara to tell the truth? She's obviously under a strong influence of genjutsu. If she could speak to us, then maybe – "

"She _can't_ wake up, Kakashi!" Obito began to use every ounce of his strength to fight back.

 _"Obito!"_ Kakashi snapped while redoubling his hold, "This is not the time to be thinking of yourself! I don't even know if this is the true Ri – "

He looked up.

Rin was looking directly into his eyes.

Kakashi stopped, his arms dropping to his sides while Obito landed on the rocky ground.

Seeing her was the last thing he would have ever expected and it jarred Kakashi to his core, but her lack of consciousness, the blankness in her eyes had helped him to separate her likeness from her person. But when she caught his eyes with hers, everything Kakashi had been fighting against died inside him. His right arm trembled with the memory of her soft organs, the lull of her weakening pulse all around, the way her very heart quieted against his unwilling palm as he drug his quivering limb back through the gaping cavern he had made in her little body.

In the slightest seconds that held their gaze, he experienced the lifetime of suffering that was fully realized when those same eyes pierced through him the night he ripped the life from her body. The sensation was so complete it could have been it's own Tsukiyomi.

Madara laughed at them in amusement, knowing he had both of them under his thumb completely. With that knowledge secured, he released her and Rin crumpled to the ground. She landed hard and involuntarily began gulping the dusty night air, deep coughs racking her small body.

"Oh, Rin!" Obito gasped, scrambling across the ground on his broken knees towards Rin's heaving form. Madara stepped in front of her protectively and kicked Obito forcefully in the face, knocking him backwards.

Wincing through his pain, Obito propped himself up on his elbows, making a valiant attempt to calmly analyze the monstrous situation before him. But it just so happened that every time his gaze fell on Rin, his heart became a rabid animal too wild for the cage of his chest. His turmoil was suddenly aligned by the voice of Madara, pulling him back into the battle.

"I see your old rival doesn't believe I am a man of my word, but what could I possibly expect from a bastard of the sharingan? He reaps all of the benefits from the Uchiha without paying any of the dues. So typical of a Leaf Shinobi."

Madara turned and sat down right next to Rin, primarily to relish the raw disturbance that stormed over Obito's face at every inch of proximity he gained towards the little brunette.

"I now see that your reasons for donning a mask were not to conceal your identity so much as they were to hide that you completely lack a poker face, Obito." Madara sneered, catching a lock of Rin's glossy hair between his heavily gloved fingers, causing Obito to devolve into even more of a wreck.

" _Don't touch her!_ " He rasped, his whole body quivering like a man trying to find stability in an earthquake.

"Unlike your unbelieving friend here," Madara indicated a slight nod of his head towards Kakashi, "You know the truth, don't you?"

Obito remained silent, his dry throat convulsing.

"Yes."

Turning his head towards Kakashi, Madara arrogantly smiled.

"Best listen to your old comrade here. He may be a grand fool, but he knows the truth when he sees it, as any Uchiha would."

For the first time in many minutes, Minato interjected.

"What does he mean, Obito?"

Glued to her still expressionless face, Obito sighed.

"There was a time, some years back, when I almost abandoned Tsuki no Me. There is no way he could have guessed this unless he was informed by Black Zetsu, who was present with me at the time. And based upon Rin's appearance, if she had been resurrected at that point, her current age would be accurate."

Obito cut his eye back towards his sensei.

"Madara is cunning beyond belief. His back-up plans have back-up plans. And though he lies and manipulates the light of truth into darkness, you can bet that if a person possesses a deepest fear, he knows about it before they do and will do everything he can to exploit them with it. And the only fear greater than losing Rin…"

He trailed off, but Madara finished his sentence,

"Is to gain her once more in this current reality, where you are the devil himself."

Madara continued to slowly circle her scalp with his fingers in the same way one might absent-mindedly caress a pet cat. Emptied of all options short of begging, Obito lowered his eyes to the ground.

"Madara… _Please_."

Madara's face turned to stone.

"You know my conditions. And my initial promise of ten seconds has long since passed. You have had more than the time it should take any shinobi to make a decision. Do you revive me, Obito? Or…"

Accentuating the alternative, he placed his hand against Rin's cheek and steered her face towards Obito.

"…Or she knows the truth about her hero, Obito Uchiha, and I kill her slowly before the eyes you do not deserve."

Obito knew that he should throw himself wholeheartedly into the assurance that Madara never reach perfection. The whole world would end up suffering as acutely as he had. If he had any hope for the slightest redemption, he must not falter, he must not wane.

Yet when Rin's eyes locked onto his, he could think of nothing more important in the universe than saving her innocence from enduring pains too crushing to befall her again. The two most important decisions that founded his life all those years ago, in a nauseating twist of irony and fate, were once again before him: Protect Rin or save the world?

His prolonged hesitations were more resistance than Madara had anticipated. He produced a kunai from his sleeve. For a second the world went silent before his chilling voice calmly growled,

 _"Or perhaps you have become so poisoned that the blood of the innocent excites you."_

He plunged the kunai violently through Rin's body.

* * *

" _No!"_ Obito screamed, lurching forward towards Madara. The sudden surge of energy within him didn't make sense, but needed only one explanation:

Rin.

Beyond the surprise of every person, Obito's fist slammed into Madara's face so hard that it knocked him several feet from Rin's skewered body.

As suddenly as his rage had overtaken him, it was gone. He hit his knees next to Rin.

Her expressionless eyes flamed in pain as she screamed. A blow of this magnitude should have been more than enough to wake her from genjutsu, yet she remained wordless and staring, even through her tears and convulsions. He examined the kunai that had her pinned to the ground. Madara had stabbed her between her shoulder and breast, landing in a dangerous area. Obito knew that she would bleed out if something wasn't done soon.

He tore his eyes from Rin to Madara, who was starting to compose himself. Despite the ferocity of the punch he took, the old shinobi was far less injured than surprised. Obito knew his time was short.

His eyes darted to Kakashi, who could still read his teammate even after all this years. He was by his side in a flash.

"I don't see another way out of this… I'm going to have to use kamui on him." Obito whispered as they surveyed Rin's injuries.

"Do you have the chakra to use kamui? Even if you attempt that, there's no way you can fight him. He'll force you to use the rinnegan if he doesn't kill you and steal it first!"

Obito growled and closed his eyes in a grinding wince. He knew Kakashi's words were true but in his state of ridiculous exhaustion and emotional trauma he couldn't think, _he just couldn't think!  
_  
Sensei took this moment to fly at Madara. Even with his speed and strength, the two men knew he would serve as a minor distraction for Madara at best.

Rin began moaning more loudly.

"I can't think, Kakashi!"

"Then let me think for you! I'll use my kamui and transport him. At least I'll stand a fight for a little while. We just need to plan a – "

"I won't let you do that! I'm the one who needs to atone for my sins, I won't let yo – "

"You're the one who needs to stay alive! The world rests on you keeping that rinnegan away from him!"

"I'll find a way. I don't know how yet, but I'll figure it out. I can't let you sacrifice yourself like you're so eager to do!"

"Would you listen to yourself! You're still so impulsive! How is it that you ran an organization like Akatsuki by just winging it? We can't expose you to risk!"

"Why are you so pigheaded? I have handled myself for years, I'll find a way to handle this! And when I die, all will be as it's supposed to be!"

"You can't fall back on guilting yourself now! Be a real shinobi and do what's best for all of us and not to sate your emotions!"

"This is beyond emotions, if you would just listen – "

"There's nothing to listen to, you're blathering nonsense!"

"Now you're going to listen to me, you arrogant bastard, here is wh – "

Amid the bickering, Rin began to stir.

 _"O… bi… Obi…"  
_  
Both men froze, and Obito stared down at her in horror.

 _"Obi… Ka… Kash…"_

Rin tapered off and the only sounds was the noise from the skirmish sensei was starting to buy his old team valuable time.

 _"…Kashi. Obi."_

She slowly lifted her hand, batting it around, reaching for something. She nearly grazed Obito but he jerked away from her floundering wrist and curled fingers. Kakashi reached out and grabbed her hand. Her pained face turned towards Kakashi, her eyes, straining. She looked right through him, but managed to lock her eyes with his.

 _"K... Kashi."_

Obito's skin was cut by flying shards of rock, coming from an explosive jutsu Minato had used against Madara. The girl he had loved enough to shake the foundations of the world was a woman before him. Not only that, but she was in searing pain and in danger of losing the life that had been given back to her. The gift of life and curse of enslavement, lodged in his left eye socket. He had made blasphemous decisions, and they cultivated before him in an impossible choice. His body was shaking violently from his loss of chakra. He might die before Madara had a chance to kill him.

But in that second that Kakashi held Rin's hand and she looked up into his eyes, the crippling weight of all his decisions lifted off his splintering spine. In the curl of her delicate fingers around the calloused ones of the man she once loved, all became clear to him.

 _He had been here before._

 _And in that day, he was good._

"Give me your kunai, Kakashi."

Suspiciously, but with no other ideas, Kakashi pulled a kunai from his pouch and handed it to Obito.

Obito closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath.

"Listen to me, Kakashi. I know how to stop Madara. But I'm going to need you to make me another promise. And luckily for you, fate has given you a second chance at a once-in-a-lifetime vow… As it seems has been granted to me, in these eerily similar circumstances."

Kakashi was troubled by his old friend's words.

"Obito, what are you going to do?"

Ignoring him entirely and looking down at Rin, he brought his hand so close to her face, yet dare not touch her.

"Promise me, once more, that you'll take care of Rin. She loved you back then, and she will love you again."

Suddenly the bird-like weight of Rin's hand in his felt much, much heavier to Kakashi. Obito continued,

"We've been here before, but this time she's not holding my hand. She never should have been. It should have been yours all along. And had Madara not taken her life to throw mine away, I believe you two would have comforted each other through this painful shinobi existence and found a reason for living. She could have taken your pain, but Kakashi…" Obito's trembling fingers danced before her face, which was now frozen, eyes still directed at Kakashi's face.

"Even if she can't carry your pain, promise me you'll carry hers."

Minato shouted as he rushed at Madara, the last of his abilities exploding in the inevitable end of an impossible battle. Kakashi interjected over the noise,

"Why ask me when you could do it yourself, Obito!"

Obito's hand cupped around the side of Rin's face tenderly, still without touching her. Despite his gentle way with her, eyes of fire snapped up at Kakashi.

"The only redemption I can ever find is in death! Can you imagine Konoha pardoning me after I singlehandedly caused all of this," he waved his hand through the air in big motions. "How could I meet her needs when I'll rightfully be executed accordingly? It's better you tell her I died as a boy, a madman named Tobi started all of this, but you and your team saved us all. It's better she not be made to mourn my death of the soul… It's just too cruel." Obito lowered his head to gaze upon Rin.

Sensei hit the ground with a resounding thud, the diversion at it's end. Obito's eyes shone as dancing glass when he looked up to Kakashi one final time.

"Swear to me you'll never tell her of this, Kakashi. I loved her monstrously and in losing her became a monster myself. Let her never know that she was the catalyst for all this blood and loss."

Rin moaned and his tears fell upon her face.

"But if you ever get the chance, in some unforced moment or quiet afternoon…

Will you tell her that I loved her?"

Kakashi gulped hard.

"I did after we lost you, Obito."

For the first time, Obito lowered himself over her supine form and kissed her gently, adoringly, on the forehead.

"Tell her again, just once, for me. And then you tell her every day of your life."

Obito rose and faced a slowly approaching Madara. His back to his former team, he glanced once more over his mismatched shoulder to feast his eyes on the girl – no, somehow woman – he had loved more than the world.

Looking forward he uttered quickly,

"Oh and Kakashi,"

Wordlessly Kakashi lifted his head to Obito.

"Never use your mangekyo ever again."

With those words, Obito rushed at Madara. His sharingan fired, and both men were lost in the swirl of kamui.


	3. A Mask All Your Life

**A Cord of Three Strands**

Chapter III

 _A Mask All Your Life_

* * *

Kakashi didn't move, completely horrified at what had transpired before him. Minato-sensei, who was just getting up from the ground, searched about madly before asking,

"Where is Madara?"

When Kakashi didn't answer, he looked and realized Obito wasn't there, either.

"Did Obito take on Madara by himself?"

With a shaken voice, Kakashi answered,

"He didn't take Madara to fight him. He took Madara to die."

Minato's eyes widened, just as Naruto and Sasuke arrived back on the battlefield.

"Where's Madara?!" Naruto screamed. "He was gone in the blink of an eye and left a shadow to fight us until just now!"

"Where's Sakura?" Kakashi interrupted quickly, and Naruto noticed for the first time the woman lying on the ground in Kakashi's arms.

"Hey, did you hear me, Kakashi-sensei? Madara is on the loose and we can't – "

Kakashi lifted his weary, grief-stricken eyes to his pupil, "Naruto, I need a medic here as fast as possible." His voice was quiet and frayed.

Naruto was taken back by his sensei's state. He asked inquisitively,

"Who is that woman, Kakashi-sensei? She doesn't have a shinobi alliance forehead protector or a flak jacket."

Minato stepped in,

"Naruto, Madara is gone. And if his plan worked, then Obito is, too."

Naruto's eyes widened dramatically.

"Whaddya mean, dad? What happened? How could Obito…"

"He sucked himself and Madara into his kamui. Kakashi believes he intends to die there, entrapping Madara in the kamui without a way out."

"So he planned to…" Naruto tapered off.

"Most likely," Minato added softly, "He intended to draw Madara into the portal before destroying both his rinnegan, so Madara can't be reborn, and his sharingan, so Madara can't escape."

There was quiet all around for a moment before Minato added,

"We have to remain on our guard. If Obito's plan fails, Madara could appear at any moment."

As Minato discussed contingency plans with Naruto and Sasuke, Sakura ran onto the field towards Kakashi.

"Sensei! I'm coming!" Sakura shouted as she approached her teacher.

Kakashi gave the briefest of glances towards Sakura, hesitant to pull his attention from Rin should something unexpected occur. Perhaps Obito trusted Madara's word, but he must keep a sense of wariness about himself in case this was a trap.

 _Of course_ _that's why he couldn't stop looking at her._

Sakura approached him from behind but jerked to a stop when she saw the woman in his arms.

"Oh, sensei," she muttered, slightly stunned.

"Please tend to her, Sakura."

"Of course!" Sakura hit her knees and began quietly assessing the situation without touching the strange woman.

"Her wound is deep, sensei. I'll need to remove the kunai and stave her bleeding. She's lost quite a bit of blood, so she's going to be very weak even after I heal her." Sakura looked up at Kakashi, "Sensei, why haven't you released her genjutsu?"

"It's not an ordinary genjutsu," Kakashi's eyes met Sakura's, "I think this is going to take some time and energy to undo. Besides, it's possible that her genjutsu will sedate her during this painful extraction."

Sakura grimaced, "While that's true, it's possible the genjutsu could heighten those effects as well, which is why I would at least have her be cognizant to give us feedback. But if it can't be helped, I'll do what I can to make it as quick as possible."

Sakura noticed how Kakashi-sensei's eyes were fixed again upon the woman. He was looking at her with a strange lilt, a gaze that would soon demand explanations. He was so very calm, that had not changed… But he was giving himself away, and that was something he never, ever did. Sakura felt she should prepare him.

"Sensei?"

"Oi."

"I'll make this as quick as I can, but it's going to hurt her. Please restrain her if she acts out."

Sakura noticed how his eyes widened, how his pupils dilated slightly. He nodded his head so gently it barely registered.

With that, Sakura pulled out the kunai in one swift motion. The woman came up off the ground in a shriek, her chest thrusting and her nails scraping the rocky ground. True to his promise, Kakashi restrained her efficiently, without a word. Sakura grasped the kunai and very quickly slit the woman's robe as Kakashi held her wrists to the ground.

Carefully, Sakura began to remove the shredded, blood-soaked layers from the woman's body. Kakashi-sensei kept his hands locked on hers, steadily.

"Just as I thought, the shape of the gash is consistent with a twisting thrust. Do you see the way that the wound opens here like – "

Sakura looked at Kakashi-sensei. His eyes were closed.

Pretending to taper off, she began releasing chakra to try and heal what was an even more damaging wound than she had first anticipated. With her free hand, she grabbed a clean swath of the woman's garment and laid it across her naked breasts.

It was not the shinobi way to be polite or bashful towards the wounded, and it certainly wasn't Kakashi-sensei's way, either. Sakura would get her answers later, considering they lived through this hellish night.

She could see the woman was in deep pain as she moaned and squirmed about on the ground. Sakura's healing jutsu was efficient, but also painful. She heard the inside of the wound crackle as it cauterized, and the burning caused the woman to gulp as tears streamed down her face.

 _"Kaaa…"_ She sputtered, the blankness of her eyes focusing as they spilled over in tears.

 _"Kaaa… Ahhh!"_

Sakura noticed Kakashi shifting uncomfortably.

 _"Kaaa – shiii!"_

Sakura was startled.

"Sensei… She's saying your name."

Kakashi let go of her.

Instead of fighting off Sakura, the woman put her hands over her face in agony. She began to weep, her mouth open and gasping for air.

"The genjutsu is not allowing her to restrain her emotions as a kunoichi normally would." Sakura added, "It will still be several more minutes before she's stable."

To Sakura's surprise, Kakashi-sensei sat cross-legged on the ground behind the woman and gently placed his hands on either side of her head. He gathered her long, dark hair in one hand and swept it to the side. With his other hand, he lifted her head gently and placed it on his lap. Tenderly, he removed one hand from her face and spoke softly, yet firmly,

"Look at me, Rin."

Her streaming, red eyes met his as she bellowed her cries, the undignified gape of her mouth and exposure of normally shadowed molars added to her incivility, a testament to her pain and need.

 _"Kaaa… shhh…"_ She wept.

He placed his hand against her wet face and began drying her tears as his thumb soothed her cheek.

"It's okay, Rin. I'm here."

She calmed. Her eyebrows drew in the middle from the pain, but looked almost inquisitive.

 _"O - Obi."_

Kakashi's face had been directly above her, but he lowered himself forward until his forehead was touching hers.

"He's our hero, as always." Kakashi whispered to his childhood friend, so low that he was certain that no one else could hear.

Sakura was speechless, but after a few more minutes had passed, she managed her words.

"She's stable for now. I'll have to follow up with her after some time, but I dare not use anymore chakra just in case we haven't seen the end of the battle yet."

Kakashi lifted his head from the woman's head. He removed his flak jacket and handed it to Sakura. He turned his back as Sakura began to bandage the woman before slipping the olive green, much-too-large utility vest around the slight body of the wounded woman.

"Sakura, you said that the genjutsu wasn't allowing her to control her emotions like a kunoichi is trained to do."

He turned around as Sakura hefted the now-responseless woman into his arms.

"How did you know she was a shinobi? Nothing about her indicates that at first glance."

Sakura looked at the woman with pity, then up at the inquisitive eyes of her sensei.

"She has an enormous wound on her chest, sensei… The kind that no civilian could survive, the kind that the strongest shinobi shouldn't have survived. Honestly, sensei, she's just mangled. I can't imagine – "

Sakura caught the wince in his eyes, as if he had been stabbed himself. She also noticed how his grip on the woman intensified, and how her dangling arm began to tremor.

Wordlessly, Kakashi turned and walked away.

"Kakashi-sensei! Wait a minute!"

Naruto came bounding up to Kakashi as he staggered slowly across the battlefield with Rin locked tightly in his arms. Kakashi looked at his pupil over his shoulder.

"Kakashi-sensei, you can't let Obito do this! We have to save him!"

Kakashi stared at Naruto.

"Do you even understand what you're saying?"

Determined, Naruto clenched his fists tightly.

"I do, sensei. We can't let Obito sacrifice himself like this. We need to save him and defeat Madara once and for all!"

"Naruto," Kakashi whispered, completely drained, "This is the whole world at stake. This is everyone you know and love placed in unnecessary danger. Obito made the choice of a hero. There is simply no way I can let you do this."

Naruto pointed a shaky finger in his sensei's face, "And there's no way I can let you do this to yourself!"

Kakashi was stunned. "What are you talking about?"

"I see it on your face already, Kakashi-sensei! I struggled so hard to rip that mask off of Obito's face, and here you are about to put it back on yours!"

Kakashi almost dropped Rin. Naruto continued, impassioned.

"You felt like Obito dying was your fault, didn't you? If you let him die now, you're going to feel that way all over again. You're going to put on another mask. And if you do, who's to say that you'll ever be able to take it off? What if you turn out like he did all those years, with so much pain buried inside of you that you begin to disconnect from reality?"

"Naruto, are you saying I'm going to turn to the side of evil because of this? Because that's very presumptive of you." Kakashi replied, eyebrows tightening in unconcealed disgust.

"What I'm saying is that when you retreat to the shadows, you don't let others see you. They can't help you when you struggle because you hide in darkness. Even if you never turn to the side of evil, sensei, I don't want you to live your life hiding from your friends and shouldering pain and regret all by yourself! And pain and regret is exactly what you'll feel if we don't try and save Obito!"

Kakashi countered,

"You can't allow the whole world to rest upon my mental health, Naruto. That's an insane manner of thinking."

"Sensei, Ero-sennin entrusted me with finding the way to peace. I think the reason we haven't realized it yet is because we do the thing that looks wise but ends in hurt, rather than the thing that looks stupid but has the ability to heal. It seems wise for you to let Obito go and live in a world of suffering for the rest of your life, but if we save him you can be free from that painful life. And pain in isolation is the cause of all this darkness in the world. I think that in order to create a peaceful world, I have to eliminate the darkness every time I see it starting. You can stop hiding how you feel and face this with me, Kakashi-sensei."

Sasuke, Sakura, and Minato began approaching Naruto. Kakashi looked at Naruto for a long moment.

"What makes you so sure I am hiding?"

Naruto looked his sensei unflinchingly in the eye.

"You've been wearing a mask all your life, Kakashi sensei."

Kakashi's eyes widened.

"You only let one person near you, and you lost him twice. Let's go get him back, then you can live with the sun on your face and stop living in darkness!"

Kakashi froze completely and didn't move, even after the others flanked them.

"Not that I care about Naruto's perspective," Sasuke added, steadily, "but whatever Obito ends up doing is hidden to us. We won't know Madara's current state and will be disadvantaged if he takes the upper hand. Madara could kill him and use any amount of time to recover, then use Obito's sharingan when we think the battle is over. He could materialize before us at full strength and we'd be caught off guard."

Minato added, "Sasuke is right. Even if Obito were to succeed in his own plan, we don't know the extent of Madara's abilities. If he had access to Obito, he might be able to extract enough information from his corpse to emulate kamui or find a way to escape."

Slowly, Kakashi turned his body towards Sakura and placed Rin in her arms.

"Sakura, take care of her."

Her face was perplexed, but she accepted the wounded, unconscious woman.

Kakashi placed one hand upon Naruto's shoulder, the other on Sasuke's.

"Let's wait for the other kage to join us. Once they do, we will make a strategy and then we will face Madara. Everyone must be at their best, or we haven't a chance of defeating him."

The others began to buzz with ideas and intensity, and Kakashi noticed Sakura relaying Rin's body to a medical shinobi before coming back to join her team.

 _"Naruto is almost right,"_ Kakashi thought to himself, _"But I didn't just let one person near me… I let two. And if I can get them both back…"_

Kakashi memorized the attire and countenance of the Sunogakure shinobi holding Rin's body as the rest of the kage appeared around him.

 _"Rin, I'm bringing Obito back this time. Please wait for us!"  
_

* * *

The old shinobi held his hands in front of his face in a show of good faith as Obito held the kunai so close to his sharingan that a pulsing nerve would have spelled the end of it all.

"Obito, no need to make displays of bravery just now."

"Madara," rasped Obito intensely, "I swear, I am going to stop you, and there is nothing you can do about it!"

Obito tensed, and Madara instinctually knew he was readying himself for a brutal gouging.

"Rin is not safe yet." Madara stated coolly. And to his undetectable relief, Obito relaxed his grip momentarily.

"Wh-What do you mean?"

In an attempt to get Obito engaged in a conversation while he planned his next move, Madara sat on the ground leisurely and adopted a casual demeanor.

"You forget that she has been living a life you know nothing about these past – oh what has it been – six, seven years? Aren't you the least bit interested in what she's been up to all of this time?"

Obito didn't move. He was torn between summoning the courage to plunge the kunai deep into his eye socket and the yearning to do whatever he could to ensure Rin's safety from here on out. What should he do? He couldn't think! It was as if all his years of unbelievable cunning was a sham, and he stood before his elder as a fourteen-year-old boy with quaking knees.

The boy he had buried for half his life surfaced, though he did not lower the kunai.

"Is she in danger? Quickly, Madara!"

Casually stretching his limbs, Madara looked deep into the eye he needed and, Obito thought, if he had any apprehension or fear about how close he might be to destruction, the old shinobi didn't show it in the least bit.

"She is very much alive, more so alive than I am. Up until today, she's been living normally."

Obito locked his jaw, trying not to show any emotion. But realizing that she had, indeed, been alive in this world while he was moving through it like a ghost caused a deep, throbbing pain in his heart.

"How do you even…" He began, debating fiercely within himself if he should even fall into the trap of talking to Madara at all. Though he tapered off, his curiosity won the better of him. He began again, "How do you even know who she is?"

"You told me about her, remember? Those nights when I tended your wounds. She and that Hatake boy were all you talked about."

"But… She was dead, Madara. I don't understand."

Madara looked at him cruelly.

"I placed the same curse tag in her heart that I placed in yours."

Obito's eyes widened in unalloyed shock.

"Wh…What?"

"I orchestrated her death. And I orchestrated you being there to see it. The fact that your little friend was the one who killed her was even better than I could have planned. It drove you to become exactly the man I wanted you to be with no chance of you turning to the one person you might have sought out, since he was the murderer after all."

Obito's face twisted in absolute horror. He lowered the kunai slightly as he ran his free hand through his hair in restless disbelief.

" _Why_?"

"You were genuinely kind, from the bottom of your heart. Wasn't taking care of elders your specialty? I couldn't have someone so compassionate take on the mantle I needed to pass. I had to ensure your utter break with reality."

Madara grinned as he realized his bold admission had just the effect he had hoped for. He had always held Obito under his thumb, and with his confession, he had completely derailed the boy. He looked as lost and ravaged as Madara could have hoped for. Madara began to shift his body as if to move towards Obito, but his rabid eyes met Madara's and he lifted the kunai up to the rinnegan once more. Madara realized he needed to keep Obito talking.

"But now, she's captive under a powerful jutsu that reduces her life experience to that of one just below consciousness. She is in a constant state of distress, mental confusion, and disorientation. Her life is a cruel fever dream that she can't wake herself from."

Madara's gaze never left Obito, and though Obito showed his upset through subtle gleams of his eyes, he tried desperately not to change his stance. Though his heart was flailing wildly within him, he knew Madara was trying to make him so unstable that he'd leave himself open. That was something he could not allow himself to do, no matter how much he felt like he was drowning.

"I have an associate responsible for her current state. He weaves a tremendous genjutsu so powerful, not even the Uchiha can surpass it. And this genjutsu is one he cooked up, personally, just for your little darling."

Madara assessed whether or not he should lunge for Obito while explaining, but the feeble, yet unkillable, shinobi was girded in a newfound strength. And though Madara might be able to intercept the kunai before Obito gouged the eye, he wasn't able to calculate whether he could retrieve the rinnegan completely undamaged. From their proximities, he guessed he had a 60% chance. That was not a number that he was willing to wager all of his labor upon, so he decided to walk his alternate scenario out fully.

"There's a time limit on her jutsu. If, within that time limit, the jutsu is not broken, then her soul will be sealed, effectively killing her in this realm."

Obito's eyes flashed.

Madara grinned.

"What kind of seal?" he rasped.

"Well," said Madara, standing slowly, monopolizing Obito's current distress as the perfect moment to take back the dominant position, "It's a seal that even the most cold-hearted shinobi wouldn't wish on his most traitorous enemy."

"STOP." Obito spat as Madara brought himself to his feet.

"She will be forever tortured. Every single second of her eternal life will be spent in debilitating pain, unspeakable torment, unending suffering. Physically, mentally, emotionally, she will be thrown into a cycle of unimaginable agony with no possibility of salvation. This is what happens to that lass the very second her time is up."

Obito's heart would have burned as a beacon of hatred were it not extinguished by the ice cold fear that gripped every cell of his being. He couldn't focus on anything but the horror of what Madara was suggesting.

The only consolation Obito had ever found in the thought of Rin's death was that somewhere, in the Pure Land, she was flanked by angels and surrounded by love. To even imagine that she could be exposed to a hell like this for even one moment was unbearable.

"You can't, Madara. You _can't_."

"Would you forsake her now, after all this time? Or would you finally be the savior to her that you could never be before? Maybe you couldn't save her life as a hero, but you can save her soul as a villain. Within my Tsukiyomi, you can give her a reality that's better than heaven. In your infinite dream, you can return to the pure boy you once were and create the life you longed to forge long ago."

Obito's conflict bubbled over, and in his own eye, Madara saw how much turmoil Obito had infused as it glassed over in shimmering emotion.

"Obito, I am not without compassion. You have been a Judas to me, but I cannot so easily forget the years you poured into my vision. I am willing not to torture your beloved, but to give her back to you in body before I allow you to be united together in your infinite dreams. Her eternal soul can be salvaged if you give me that eye this very minute."

His bones were frozen. There was absolutely no way that he could give Madara the rinnegan. After so many dark and lonely years, he had seen light. He could never relinquish this power to Madara. And yet, Rin was his first light. Could he prioritize this broken world over her, after so many years of fighting to end it all?

His eyes sank to the ground.

Obito warred within himself, Madara could see it plain as day. He couldn't help but drive the stake further within his apprentice's tormented heart.

"Her life, since your traitorous nature necessitated her revival, has been one filled with the promise of sunlight, but it seems that all she may ever experience hereafter is blackened skies, endless rain, and the promise of a dawn that has been wholly swallowed by infinite night. Her only hope of light is to awaken in her perfect dream. Any other scenario promises only darkness."

Madara delivered his words with venom as his footsteps approached the trembling man before him.

As Madara neared confidently, menacingly, his words swirled in Obito's head.

 _"Since… her revival…"_

Seven… Has it been seven years now?

" _The promise of sunlight…"_

Oh, how she loved the sun. She was the sun. Rin was the only light his life had ever known.

" _All she may experience hereafter is blackened skies…"_

Like his own dark world, living for dreams, hiding beneath masks…

 _"…Endless rain…"_

Just as his world had started raining, after her death…

Wait.

Obito's weary mind scrambled.

 _Wait._

His world rained, poured after her death. There was Nagato, and Konan, and… Yahiko.

He almost physically gasped.

 _The Hidden Rain._

Seven years! It was _seven_ years ago. Nagato must have revived her in the Hidden Rain, while he was away in the opposite end of the Fire Country, in that rural, mountainside village.

 _The one he had dedicated his whole being to forgetting._

But if she had been revived, and Nagato's loyalty and trust within Akatsuki rested on the outcome of her resurrection… Then he surely must have kept her close where he could monitor her with the Rain Tiger at Will jutsu.

Obito's mind began to spin, and the genius with which he had orchestrated worldwide pandemonium started to connect the dots. Who else had such an extensive knowledge of Madara's colleagues and connections besides himself? With a moment of time to think proactively instead of reactively, he became increasingly sure second by second that he could pinpoint the location, find the caster, and dispel the jutsu.

It was the only way Obito could live with himself, whether in this life or the next.

He roaringly came back to himself, senses aflame, entirely aware of Madara's proximity and intentions.

The nanosecond that he did, Madara knew. Being far more physically capable than Obito, he lunged with precision, fingers curled, aimed to extract the rinnegan.

Obito dodged as Madara's fingers glanced his cheek. Obito turned while falling back to the ground, weaving hand signs as he went.

" _Koton! Gokyaku no jutsu!"_

* * *

With the living, mostly-rejuvenated kage surrounding them, Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura, Minato, and Kakashi began quickly summarizing their decision to go after Madara in the kamui realm.

"We have a strategy that wasn't previously available to us kage when fighting Madara." Onoki said. "There is a forbidden sealing technique in the Stone. It is extremely guarded, and as of now, I am the only living shinobi that may even know of its existence. It has never been successfully executed, due to the requirements of the jutsu."

"What are those requirements?" asked Minato.

"It's a ten-pointed barrier. Much like the Four Red Yang Formation barrier you resurrected kage performed earlier against the ten-tails, it can only be performed by ten shinobi of kage-level power. From the intel that I've reviewed, it is quite similar in function to the technique used by the Akatsuki to seal the tailed beasts."

"How does it work?" Sakura asked.

"It is a simple sequence of hand seals in a ten-pointed formation. It isn't the intricacy of the jutsu that makes it nearly impossible, it's the sheer power that each individual must possess to sustain it."

Everyone soberly assessed their own remaining strength as Onoki continued.

"I'm going to be honest. I don't know if our current party has enough chakra to carry it to complete success. But it is possible that even a partial success could seal Madara away. Imagine that within our combined jutsu, we create enough strength to immobilize Madara. However, there is a breakdown of users and a formula we must follow to restrain him. Three of raw strength must channel their physical strength into chakra and hold Madara's physical body in a state of paralysis. Two senjutsu users must then identify the Gate of the God of Heaven, which is impossible to find aside from senjutsu. Once found, the senjutsu users must use every ounce of focus to physically materialize that gate in the middle of our formation. Then, the other five must orchestrate all of their efforts into forcing Madara inside."

"Having never been fully completed, how can we be sure that it will work?" asked Sasuke.

"Sealing jutsu have objectively exact formulas, so in theory, it will work. The main question has to do with our current chakra levels. However, it's also very risky because we can't assess it against any other successful seal of this caliber. Also, there's another risk I haven't mentioned."

"What is that?" asked Kakashi.

"Reincarnations are, analytically, something we know nothing about. This jutsu, as essentially all jutsu are, is founded on the idea that all the same elements affect us as affect our opponent. For a reincarnation, I don't know how the sealing rules apply. Perhaps they are the same, but they may be very different."

Minato added, "That's true. Even my extensive study of sealing jutsu only ever dealt with sealing a living soul and body. Madara is technically a living soul in a dead body. The mechanics of how the seal might work could be analyzed if we had any successful cases to measure it against, which we don't."

"Well, it doesn't seem like we have much choice, and it doesn't seem like we have much time!" interjected A, bristling with impatience.

"You're right, Raikage." nodded Onoki. "Without this jutsu, I don't think that we have another chance. And besides," he grinned, "it seems fate has saddled us with three shinobi of monstrous strength and two senjutsu masters. I have a feeling that destiny is on our side."

As Onoki began explaining the technical aspects of the hand seals, Minato felt himself awash in a silent prayer. A prayer for the success of this mission so that his own son could realize his dream without being a prisoner of genjutsu.

As his prayer continued, his eyes fell upon a man that, though physically older than him now, would always be a boy - a son - in his eyes. He watched as his sharingan copied perfectly the hand seals Onoki exhibited… and he watched as that gaze lifted beyond, searching for a Sand Medic with an unconscious woman in her arms.

Remembering the psychological torment that came from losing both his teammates in a short time, Minato found his prayer expanding.

 _"Please, help Kakashi to save Rin somehow. And, if there really is a God, help him to find a way to… save Obito."_

Minato looked around at the black skies, scorched earth, and countless bodies littering the battlefield.

"… _And not just from Madara."_

With the end of the prayer came the beginning of the mission.

A, Tsunade, and Sakura would physically restrain Madara.

Naruto and Minato would use Senjutsu to find the Gate of the God of Heaven.

Onoki, Mei, Gaara, Sasuke, and Kakashi would force Madara's soul through.

They all moved together, placing hands upon Kakashi as he readied himself to activate the one technique Obito used his last words to beg him never to use again. One of the last things Kakashi noticed before his sharingan flared was that as Sasuke placed his hand on Kakashi's chest, Naruto and Sakura placed their hands atop of his.

After all this discord, animosity, betrayal and dysfunction, Team Kakashi stood unified, their hands directly over their sensei's heart. He thought to himself.

 _"Obito… Rin… I can't hope beyond this moment, but they make me hope that somehow_ … _somehow_ …"

The mangekyo flashed.

 _"Kamui!"_


	4. The Long, Dark March

A Cord of Three Strands

Chapter IV

 _The Long, Dark March_

* * *

The fireball exploded around them. Normally, this flash of fire would have given Obito enough time to put a great amount of distance between himself and his opponent, but he was almost done, and he knew it. He summoned the most hidden wells of his deepest reserves, sprinting backward as quickly as possible.

Madara rocketed through the flames, his long hair billowing wildly through the smoke. Obito saw him as in a pulse of lightning, closing the gap between them. In a hundredth of a second, he'd reach him. Those cruel, curled fingers outstretched, a pre-celebratory craze in his twisted smile.

" _This is the end, Obito!"_ Madara bellowed, causing every nerve in Obito's body to tremble and every white hair to stand on end. There was no way he could counter this. He began to desperately reach for his kunai, his mind not even fast enough to realize that it was absolutely futile.

"Wha-!" Madara gurgled, flying backwards, limbs flailing, slamming into the ground with an impressive impact. It was a full second before Obito could digest what was happening in front of him.

Naruto's chakra cloak blew in the wind of kamui, crackling with power. Beside him, half a Susano'o arm wrapped around his own, Sasuke stood. Both boys had shared a tandem punch, striking Madara squarely and unprotectedly in the face. Obito shook as he realized that more people were present.

He felt a presence quickly around him. Minato-sensei and Kakashi were on both sides, dropped in defensive stances.

"Are you okay, Obito?" Kakashi inquired quickly. Obito felt a pang of anger, but then realized that without this miraculous intervention, he wouldn't have stood a chance. He acquiesced.

"Yes. I can't compete with his speed or strength."

"You're okay now, Obito." Minato-sensei said, calmly. "We are all here to back you up. We won't let anything happen to you."

Obito's chest felt tight. He remembered the night he fought Minato-sensei.

" _S-sensei…"_

" _Formation, now!_ " Tsunade yelled, and everyone but Kakashi rushed in position around Madara.

"Obito, we are going to perform a seal on Madara, but we may not have enough ability to make it work." Kakashi explained hurriedly to his former teammate. "I know you don't have much, but if this fails, you need to leave this realm immediately. I'd tell you to destroy that rinnegan, but on the chance that we fail, it may be our only chance."

Obito acknowledged him with a nod of the head.

"Stay away from the barrier. Use your discretion." Kakashi muttered before sitting down.

"Ten-Pointed Purgatory Seal!" They yelled in unison, weaving the signs that would decide their fate.

 _"Got it!"_ Screamed Naruto. Suddenly, the Gate of the God of Heaven materialized in the middle of their formation.

" _Oh thank God_ ," Sakura thought, unable to even verbalize her words. The struggle to restrain Madara had been beyond brutal, and even the combined powers of Lady Tsunade and Lord A hadn't been enough to ever have a true upper hand. Madara was just too powerful, and she wasn't sure they could hold him off a second longer.

"It's time!" Onoki signaled to Mei, Gaara, Kakashi, and Sasuke. They focused their chakra and began the concerted effort to push Madara through the gate.

"Push him as far as possible!" yelled Onoki. "The farther beyond the gate he goes, the stronger the level of the seal!"

Madara gritted his teeth until they cracked. He reeled against the strength of the efforts against him.  
 _  
"You can't win!"_ He thundered, still confident even under extreme duress. Nevertheless, the alliance persisted. Every shinobi, a master of their craft, was taxed miles beyond their breaking point. Sealing jutsu turned out to be a very different strategy than the youthful Team Seven had ever attempted, and the mechanics of honing every ounce of chakra into a purely spiritual realm was extremely strenuous. Even Naruto, who was one of the most advanced senjutsu masters known to the shinobi world, was double over, choked in exhaustion. Sakura's hands were locked so tightly in the seal of the tiger that rivulets of blood ran down her quivering fingers. Sasuke held his composure far longer than either of his former teammates, but the time came when he, too, was beginning to break. He turned his head and vomited, never taking his eyes off of Madara.

Each of the Kage was beginning to show their extreme fatigue. Tsunade harnessed her energy from the pit of her stomach in a great roar, which inspired the rest of the active kage to do the same. This rallied the morale of the sealers, though Madara's progress towards the gate was inching too slowly and laboriously to last. Either they would need dramatic progress – and quickly – or Madara was going to outlast them. If even one of the sealers slipped from 100% power, it was over. So they screamed and doubled over and retched and cried, but not one of them had fallen… yet.

Kakashi felt like his very spine was going to snap under the pressure of pushing Madara back. His entire body heaved and trembled to the point that Obito could see that he was moments from the breaking point.

" _What can I do?!"_ He sifted his thoughts rapidly. _"If I physically tried to break into the barrier, I couldn't make it in. Even if they could open it for me, I don't think that I have enough chakra to advance him towards the gate."_

Obito could feel the descent into shame and powerlessness nipping at him, and the only reason he hadn't succumbed to it was simply because of the presence of mind needed to exist in this moment.

In all his years walking the earth alone, whenever he found himself in a pinch, he would close his eyes and imagine the chuunin exams, when Rin was cheering for him from the arena's balcony. It seemed he could almost hear her voice, cheering even as he was knocked flat on the ground by…

" _That's it_!" Obito burst out loud.

"Kakashi, get ready to open up the barrier!" Obito concentrated all his feeble power and his mangekyo began to swirl. "Just hold on!"

Before Kakashi could register what Obito even said, his old friend was gone.

* * *

After several moments, Kakashi assessed the situation around him as best as he could.

Despite their tremendous cooperation, the Kage and Team Kakashi were flailing. Madara had been moved, but his power was simply unfathomable. They remained gridlocked. Every now and then, their gut-wrenching efforts rewarded them with an inch or two of Madara's boot scraping backwards across the ground. Kakashi estimated that he was perhaps seven or eight meters from the entrance of the gate, having moved perhaps a meter or two since they began.

They were in trouble, and he knew it. Onoki's plan was ambitious, and considering that his own team had never, to his knowledge, performed anything more than basic sealing jutsu, he was impressed with their ability to adapt so quickly to a god-tier technique.

He surveyed the Kage. Onoki sat strong like an iron statue, but his exertion washed his face in complete anguish. Mei was trembling violently. A was still screaming, but his voice was fizzling to a wheeze. Tsunade looked as white as a ghost. Gaara was breathing so heavily Kakashi could easily hear it from his position across the battlefield.

He turned his attention to his own team. Naruto was double over, forehead to feet, his arms raised above his body, hands still in a tight tiger seal. Sasuke looked more composed than most of them at first glance, but on further inspection had a string of drool hanging from his chin and an increasing puddle of vomit beside him.

Kakashi turned his attention to Sakura. Her mouth agape, her body heaving, dark tears streaming down her face. She was heavily fatigued. He worried most about her.

Minato-sensei was the one who seemed most unfazed. But then again, he was dead. Kakashi was unsure of what he could or couldn't feel at this point.

His estimation was that they had little more than minute, possibly less, before one of these pillars fell. It might be Sakura.

" _Or it might be me_." He admitted to himself. " _I was at my limit hours ago."_

He had felt the very last jolts of his chakra go moments before. He was digging dangerously to keep himself going, into his own life-force. This could only sustain for so long.

He felt himself start to slip.

"I… I'm at my limit." Kakashi stuttered, unsure if any of the other sealers could actually hear him.

His grip on the tiger seal started to loosen, his equilibrium in chaos. He began to slump forward, barely holding on.

"This is it…" He stammered.

 _The wind whooshed._

 _Had it?_

He felt a very familiar presence.

 _Two_ very familiar presences.

Then, a voice so enthusiastic it felt obscenely and comically out of place in such a dire moment.

"Surely, my eternal rival can hold this barrier for five days more by himself alone! He wouldn't falter at such a crucial time when the fate of all youth is at stake!"

Unexpectedly, Gai's bravado rallied something in his classically uncompetitive friend's spirit. Mostly, it was hope.

"Kakashi, channel what you've got left and open the barrier for Gai." Obito rasped beside his ear. He sounded as spent as Kakashi felt.

The thought of using one more iota of chakra than he was already expending sickened him to his very core. But then again, Sasuke had set the precedent for vomiting, so at least he wouldn't be the first.

" _You're… our… last…"_ Kakashi gulped the sizzling air around him.

"Save your words for our next karaoke competition, Kakashi! I won't lose to you, I swear!"

Gai crouched down near the barrier as Kakashi made the opening.

"And I won't lose now. Seventh Gate of Shock, OPEN!"

Gai's presence changed everything. From the second he entered the barrier and slammed Madara with a brutal kick to the face, the sealers rallied. With Onoki calling out encouragement to the group, A calling out every opening, and Tsunade harnessing her chakra through screaming, the battlefield roared to life. Somehow in the midst of it all, Naruto found himself single-handedly enlarging the gate, moving its threshold closer to Madara, who was being pummeled closer and closer to the blinding white light of the open gate.

Kakashi's invigoration was beginning to wane. He had no idea if he could actually keep his pillar standing. Even with the electric atmosphere around him, he felt as if his head were spinning faster every second.

He felt a hand upon his shoulder. Then he felt better.

Much better.

He glanced over to see a green soothing aura upon him.

"Obito! You can't give me your chakra when you're dangerously low yourself."

Obito began panting, harder and harder.

"Listen, Kakashi… You have to save the world. And you have to save Rin. She's under a genjutsu and I think I know who the caster is. I'm going to tell you everything I know so you can go and find him immediately. She's under a time-release jutsu. If her time runs out, her soul will be sealed in conscious torment forever."

Kakashi's head swam.

"Even if you tell me who you think it is, what if it's not? If the lead you give me is a dead end, I don't have the inside knowledge you do to know where to turn next. Reserve your chakra and you and I will go together to save Rin… Just like before."

Something about Kakashi's words stalled Obito's determination to martyr himself. As much as he hated to admit it, Kakashi was always so logically clear in every given moment. He had been like that as a mastermind because he had tightened the tourniquet on his heart until he thought it was dead forever. Now that his heart seemed to exist once more, feelings were dictating his actions again, just like they used to when he was a boy.

But in this case, Kakashi's logical mind made sense. If he was wrong, there was no one who could direct them to the next lead or pick up on insider clues as quickly as Obito could.

"Just like before." Obito reverberated Kakashi's words. Neither man knew how to feel about the statement, but it lingered with both of them, even in the intensity of the moment. Even though Obito stopped infusing his chakra into Kakashi, he didn't take his hand off of his shoulder.

Suddenly, Gai delivered an incredible blow, and Madara tumbled off of his feet.

 _"Naruto!"_ Sasuke shouted above the din of battle.

 _"I know!"_ Naruto yelled back. He squeezed his eyes shut and screamed from the bottom of his throat. His chakra flared and the gate's threshold advanced substantially. Madara was right at the door.

"There is no redemption, Obito! There never has been and there never will be!"

Madara lifted his empty eyes towards Obito and Kakashi's direction. They both froze as Madara's next threat slammed into their chests like a hammer.

" _You've already lost her."_

The words were scarcely out of his mouth before Gai sailed through the air, giving Madara the kick of his life. The old shinobi tumbled through the doorway.

" _He's in!"_ Tsunade yelled.

"Keep pushing him back!" Onoki demanded, "The further we get him back, the stronger the seal!"

"I am going to collapse!" Sakura sobbed, her entire body visibly quaking.

"I've got nothing left." Gaara wheezed.

" _Hold strong!_ If he's able to overcome the seal, this has all been for nothing!" Onoki cried.

Sasuke vomited for the third time.

Suddenly, the barrier began to wobble uncontrollably.

" _Sakura!"_ Kakashi jolted upright as his student hit the ground.

Everything happened very quickly. Without Sakura holding the barrier, the seal was fiercely destabilized. With the power distribution thrown out of whack, Gaara was the next to fall, bracing his body against the ground with his hands, breaking the tiger seal.

Suddenly, the grip on Madara's body was tremendously reduced, and the resistance pushing him back was lessened as well. He began to advance back through the gate, even as the entire barrier began to distort.

With the world crumbling around them, with all hell breaking loose, for the flash of a second, Kakashi's world went deaf. Eyes wide and horrified, his gaze met the face of his oldest, truest friend.

Gai was looking directly at Kakashi…

With an ear-splitting grin on his face.

No.

 _No._

"Gai!" Kakashi screamed, his cool demeanor completely gone in an instant. "Gai, plea-"

Before his words could tumble through his mouth, Gai had charged Madara, throwing both men deep into the portal seconds before the entire barrier collapsed.

As the dust settled, no one moved a muscle. Half of the alliance had no idea what had happened, and the other half who saw everything occur could barely comprehend it.

Viciously trembling, Obito staggered to his feet. He couldn't take his eyes off of the spot where the gate closed. Nothing remained now.

Even as he found his footing, he couldn't speak. He felt the icy fingers of panic close around his heart as he recalled Madara's ominous last words before Gai drove him through the gate.

" _You've already lost her."_

Seized by fear, Obito began scrambling.

"Kakashi, we have to-"

Kakashi fell forward, laying his forehead against the ground. He covered his head with his hands. Every shinobi was heaving with an exertion some of them didn't even know they were capable of, but Obito knew Kakashi's was different. It was the ragged breathing of a man crashing face-first into incomprehensible agony. Obito had seen it – _caused it_ – more times than he was capable of remembering.

" _Sakura-chan!"_ Naruto's cracky voice broke through the silence of the night. He jumped up so quickly that his knees buckled and he crashed to the ground. He struggled to stand on his feet once more, but his legs were quivering beyond his control. He hit his knees and shakily began crawling across the ground towards his fallen teammate.

Kakashi remained unmoved. Whether he was aware of what was happening with his team was uncertain. Mei, who was closest to Sakura, found her feet. As she slowly, laboriously made her way to the girl, her speed increased. She hit her knees beside the fallen kunoichi, touching her in a frenzy.

"Help!" Mei yelled, "Something is wrong!"

Kakashi was in total shock. His emotions hadn't been wilder since he was fourteen years old. He couldn't comprehend what had just happened in front of him. The shock of it all was too much…

In the long, dark march that had been his life since his entire team had been taken from him, he had only had one constant light. One consistent source of positivity and inclusion. And that light had just been extinguished before him in a blaze of heroic glory he still couldn't comprehend.

Someone was shaking him by his shoulder.

Suddenly, he was aware of his surroundings, as if surfacing from underwater.

"Kakashi, your student is…" He heard Obito's raspy voice urging him back to consciousness.

Breaking out of his stupor, he snapped his eyes forward. People were yelling. Sasuke was there. Naruto was… crawling, frantically, towards…

"Sakura!"

He was on his feet and at her side quicker than anyone else. Tsunade was cradling her, speaking to Mei. She caught eyes with Kakashi before he had even arrived.

"Her life force is nearly gone. She needs medical ninjutsu as soon as possible. I don't have enough to treat her here."

"I'll take her now!" He volunteered as Tsunade placed her in his shaking, overexerted arms.

"Do you have enough chakra to take all of us? I think we all will soon be in her place."

He nodded, his eyes full and empty at the same time. Tsunade caught his eyes purposefully.

"Kakashi…"

Her eyes were burning a hole through his broken heart. He had to prioritize or he'd melt. He looked away and, unsure if he even had enough left within him for the jump. Obito appeared at his side and very, very gently laid his hand upon his shoulder.

"I can take half of them."

With his eyes staring at everything and nothing, Kakashi slowly nodded his head.

"Oi." **  
**

* * *

With a whirl, Obito and Kakashi arrived on the battlefield with everyone in tow. Once they materialized, most everyone either hit the ground or stumbled as if they would soon fall off their feet. In anticipation, a full medical unit was awaiting their return.

As medical practitioners fell upon them immediately, an armed and lethal league of ANBU shinobi seized Obito. The man was too weak to fight, but try he did.

Kakashi, holding Sakura while he, himself, was awaiting treatment, looked gut-punched as his old friend struggled as frantically as he was able within the grip of his captors.

"Just heal me! I have to break her genjutsu! I'm the only one who can!"

An older shinobi slammed Obito's head to the ground, holding a kunai to his neck. " _Who the hell_ do you think you are, you piece of shit? There's no way you're _ever_ going to move free again!"

"He's telling the truth. Without him, we'll never break her genjutsu." Kakashi added quickly as a kunoichi began treating him.

"Who are you talking about, Commander Hatake?" asked one of the men holding Obito to the ground.

"A shinobi of Konoha has come back to us after many lost years, but she's under a time-release genjutsu and is in tremendous danger."

The older man interrupted. "Do you think that we are going to heal and free the very bastard who declared war upon all of us, even for an honorable pursuit such as that? Keeping him under lock and key and every seal we have is the first priority!"

Tsunade intervened.

"As the Hokage of Konoha, I decree that this is exactly what you're going to do."

Kakashi turned to stare at her.

"In this shinobi world, we have all lost too much. It is beyond rare that we ever get the chance to get anything back." Her strong, yet gentle, eyes locked onto Kakashi's. "Commander Hatake has served his village with unsurpassed distinction during a lifetime of loss. If there is even a chance to regain what was taken from him, I will not only sanction this mission, I will personally fight any shinobi who gets in his way."

Kakashi couldn't take his eyes off of Tsunade. In that moment, she seemed more an angel than a leader. He couldn't sanction Obito's even temporary release, but she held much more sway as a Kage.

She turned her eyes to the nearest medical ninja. Motioning to Obito, she said,

"Medic, I will personally remove this man's rinnegan. Afterwards, you will partially restore his chakra. Not entirely, but enough for him to be of use in this mission."

Obito began to jerk against his captors.

"Hokage, after the mission, I will willingly relinquish the rinnegan to you, turn myself in, and abide by any punishment Konoha and the other villages decide. But we may need every resource at our disposal to save—"

" _Silence_!" Tsunade punctuated, "You are the cause of all of this, Obito Uchiha! If you think that we are entrusting that rinnegan to you for one second more, you are the greatest fool that ever lived! I am sanctioning this mission for Kakashi's benefit, but I will not risk the world for it, as we cannot place an ounce of trust in you!"

Obito clenched his eyes shut. He knew there was no way that he could ever convince any of them of the intentions in his heart. In his mind, he was relying on having the rinnegan to aid him, but it seemed he would have to go without it.

"Then, take it quickly… But heal me quickly, too! Every second we wait is too long!"

Obito struggled as each of the people holding him down seemed to grow quiet. Impatient, he looked up to see that everyone, Kakashi and Tsunade included, all had their heads turned in the same direction. The blood rushing through his ears took a second to quiet, but in that moment, he heard a very heated argument going down.

" _What the hell did you say?!_ Don't you dare…!" The voice was sensei's son, Naruto.

"If you try to stop me, you know that I'll kill you, too."

There seemed to be some sort of altercation, and Obito couldn't hear any more of what was going on. A blast of wind kicked up, hurtling stones and debris against his body.

"What… What the hell is going on, Kakashi?!" Obito demanded, a sense of foreboding filling up the silent space.

Without tearing his eyes from the direction in front of him, he whispered mournfully,

" _Sasuke_."


	5. Minds and Hearts

**A Cord of Three Strands**

Chapter V

 _Minds and Hearts_

* * *

Kakashi limped the broken ground on ghost feet. There had, indeed, been a monstrous showdown between his two former students. Mercifully, Sasuke and Naruto had relocated to The Final Valley for their fight. Naruto implored everyone else not to come, but Kakashi and a few others had ended up following them at a distance.

The confrontation was unlike anything Kakashi had ever seen before. Naruto draped in his kyuubi cloak, Sasuke shielded by a behemoth Susano'o… Kakashi had no idea where the chakra came from, and he was more than worried that both his students would die from tapping too deeply into their chakra reserves.

In the end, that was nearly what happened. If they had listened to Naruto and stayed away, each boy would have ended up completely depleted of even life-sustaining chakra. Also… they had brutalized each other to the point of death. Naruto had been, for the second time in one day, brought back from the brink of death. His right arm was completely gone, and the amount of blood he had lost by the time anyone could get near them was almost fatal. And though Sasuke never lost his consciousness the way Naruto did, his wounds were even worse. He had lost his left arm just as completely as Naruto had, but the final rasengan-chidori explosion had caused him to lose his left eye, as well. He was so bloody and twisted by the time Kakashi arrived that the sight of him was nothing less than stomach-churning.

But in those last moments, in a way that only he could, Naruto had reached his friend. Kakashi had no idea what was said, but by the time he sauntered up to his broken students, Sasuke had captured Kakashi with a one-eyed glance. Kakashi was astounded to see his misty eye leaking, his tears cutting one clean path through all the blood and dirt on his face.

"Kakashi… I'm sorry."

Never had such few words ever rendered him as speechless or as emotional.

Both boys were receiving intensive care in the same medical tent, along with everyone who had come back from the showdown with Madara. Now that this final crisis had been quelled, Kakashi stumbled around the remains of the battlefield in complete and utter shock.

He had stayed beside Tsunade, waiting for her wounds to be healed and her chakra to be restored. Of course, given the oceanic level of chakra reserves in the Kage-level group, many medics were on a constant rotation of administering healing jutsu. Dozens had been tapped out and made to step aside as fresher medics stepped in. They were nearing two hours and Tsunade still wasn't up to a place where she could use her medical jutsu to extract Obito's rinnegan. Kakashi had been healed to a point, but redirected all the available practitioners to Sakura's aid. Despite the crushing weight on his heart and mind, his worries were divided between both Sakura and Tsunade. Sakura, because she was dangerously low on chakra and all the medical interventions hadn't yet brought her to stable consciousness, and Tsunade because… There was no reason why it should be taking her this long to reach strength.

Obito was heavily restrained outside the medical tents where the rest of them had been taken. He had a heavy chain binding his hands, and a band of armed-to-the-teeth jounin were forcing him to keep his fingers interlocked behind his head as his broken knees bit the rocky ground.

He had been given the first set of clothing found that fit him and, ironically, Kakashi thought, it had been the uniform of a fallen ANBU of Konoha, the very same clothing that he had donned primarily because of Obito and Rin's deaths. The tight, sleeveless black shirt was high-necked, the matching pants made of the same material, the long, black gloves reaching mid-bicep, the metal forearm guards extending from the wrist past the elbow, and the gray chest and back plate joined by over-the-shoulder straps… It all looked surreal on Obito, with the scars of his heroism and his shock of white hair. It also felt out-of-place on him, the hues of his upper mismatched arm on display rather than an ANBU tattoo to match Kakashi's own.

Obito caught Kakashi's gaze in his direction, just as a medic called out that Tsunade was finishing up with her treatment.

Tsunade walked out of a medical tent just as Kakashi was approaching them. She appeared ragged, but stronger. With a look of intent, she motioned to Kakashi to step to the side of the tent so she could talk to him privately.

"How much can he be trusted to stick to the mission?" asked Tsunade.

Kakashi's eyes drifted to Obito, restrained by the ANBU.

"I don't know a thing about him anymore." Kakashi confessed, and in his words he betrayed an almost quivering sadness that he had somehow staved off until this moment. "He was the hero of my life… And now he wears the uniform of a Konoha ANBU, dead at his hands."

Tsunade looked softly at her trusted commander and advisor. She spoke.

"He did completely change his position once Naruto spoke to him. He did try to sacrifice himself to save all of us. He aided us against Madara by retrieving…"

Tsunade stopped once she saw Kakashi wince in pain. She placed her hand on his chest and bowed her head in silence, realizing how raw the thought of Gai was not only to him, but to her, as well. Wordlessly, he placed his hand on top of hers and squeezed her hand, as if holding onto a lifeline. The two of them stood, awash in silent grief, Kakashi shaking like the leaves of the village in the evening wind. After several silent seconds, she opened her eyes.

"…And he brought all of us back." She finished, an audible lump in her throat.

Without looking up or opening his eyes, Kakashi nodded wordlessly. Then, all the words came spilling out.

"Tsunade-sama… What can be done with him? I feel a tearing between the desire to salvage what may still remain of him, but the reality of our world and the governments of the five nations will never allow that salvation to occur and… I can't blame them. Nothing in me is as audaciously hopeful as Naruto. He begged in tears, fresh with blood from being beaten by the Hidden Cloud's shinobi for Sasuke's sake, and the RaiKage wouldn't entertain his pleas for mercy at all. I knew that would be the outcome of his martyrdom. I know the reality of this shinobi world. Even if, beyond my greatest hope, Konoha would consider his rehabilitation, his crimes reach every village, every nation…"

The dark circles beneath his eyes intensified, his own eyes shimmering with an emotion he never allowed himself to show.

"Obito is as good as executed. I imagine the same goes for Sasuke. My hero is already dead, and now my best friend is, too."

Tsunade listened quietly as Kakashi's body racked itself with all the things he had been holding inside. Finally, she spoke, her voice tender, yet serious.

"We can't trust Obito. We can't expect our own village, much less the villages of our allies to treat him with anything less than what his actions have warranted."

She took a deep breath, lifting her eyes to the sky as the day began to dawn. Her voice quieted, but trembled in strength,

"But if Orochimaru had ever shown even one action that Obito showed today, I would do _everything_ I could to rewrite the laws of this world and bring him home."

Kakashi's shimmering eyes lifted to Tsunade as the first glow of the dawning sun broke across her blood-stained shoulders.

"Jiraiya, as well as I, surrendered his fate to the judgement of this world and it's governing bodies. But Jiraiya could never _truly_ surrender that surrender. He carried within him the sorrow, even the _guilt_ , of releasing Orochimaru from the possibility of redemption. He did so because it was the wisest course of action. A shinobi must accept the reality of the world as it is, and Jiraiya knew that throwing all of himself into trying to save a man who scorned that salvation was hopeless. He…"

Unhidden tears fell from her eyes.

"…That old fool really believed he would find the way to true peace. So, in abandoning the attempt to reach Orochimaru, he moved on to dedicate his life to finding it. He died, never having done so."

Her brows creased into a pained expression, but she laughed, despite herself.

"He left his task to finding peace with Naruto. And what does Naruto do? The very thing that Jiraiya walked away from in the pursuit of peace… His friend. Naruto chases everyone who has given up on their former self. To his great self-detriment. To his psychological anguish. To the sacrifice of all good things in his life. Naruto ran in the exact opposite direction that Jiraiya did."

"Tsunade-sama…" Kakashi muttered. She ignored him.

"I used to _despise_ Orochimaru." She continued. "I hated him so much that I used to wish we would cross paths and that he would give me one good reason to sever his head from his neck. I abhorred him. But watching Naruto taught me something, too. I hated Orochimaru because he hurt me. The three of us were more than teammates, more than friends. We were each other's family. You can't become the Legendary Sannin without intrinsically trusting every heartbeat to your comrades. Our teamwork made us unstoppable…

And Orochimaru threw us away. He threw me and Jiraiya away. Jiraiya couldn't accept it. I internalized my hurt and anger into hatred. But over time, watching Naruto refuse to cave into hatred, no matter how justified that hatred was… I felt myself start to shift. And the one person that came to my mind most of all was…"

She cleared her throat of the emotions getting in her way.

"I was reminded of Orochimaru all the time. I remembered the person he was before he lost his parents. He was thoughtful, even kind. Not dissimilar from your Obito. And then I remembered the immense suffering he felt when he lost them. That pain became a barrier that Jiraiya and I couldn't overcome. It drove him to abandoning everything. I thought of how his departure from us had turned me hateful, but the more I remembered us as we had been, the more I wondered if reconciliation might have been possible if I had possessed a stronger heart."

Kakashi felt as if Tsunade's deepest sadness and hardest-won wisdom was on display right before his weary eyes. Her lips lilted in a winsome smile, her eyes far away as she continued.

"Jiraiya had a much stronger heart than I did… And I think if he had listened to his heart instead of the rules of the shinobi world, perhaps he would've stumbled onto this answer before Naruto did."

Tsunade looked at Kakashi.

"Weren't there once two boys… One who listened to the rules of the shinobi world, and one who listened to his heart?"

Kakashi's stomach lurched.

"Which boy changed which? Do you remember? The one who followed the rules, or the one who followed his heart?"

She turned to look towards the open tent where Naruto was being treated. He was maimed, disfigured, broken, bleeding, and beaming with the most dazzling smile any of them had ever seen.

"That is a boy that follows his heart. He changed Nagato. He changed Obito. He changed _me_."

She cast her gaze at another boy, lying on his back. His sable hair askew, a blood-stained stump where his left arm used to be, his eyes swollen shut… and the most peaceful look on his face that she could imagine.

"I think he changed Sasuke."

Her face suddenly altered. She was wide-eyed, her intent so exposed she felt scared, her mind and heart aligning on the same unbelievable thought. Her open expression made Kakashi feel shaky with… what was this feeling?

"This is too new to be sure, but…I think that with which Jiraiya entrusted Naruto is happening before our very eyes."

The profundity of the moment hung in the air between the two of them, as if something sacred were blooming out of this blood-soaked ground. Kakashi dare not say a thing. Finally, Tsunade looked at him, her eyes, large; her emotions, imperceptible.

"Don't ask me about anything else, because I simply don't know. The village, the nations... I can't say. But Kakashi…

Could _you_ ever forgive him?"

Such a long, silent moment passed between them that she almost wasn't sure if he was going to answer.

" _Seventy-seven times."_ Kakashi whispered.

"What?"

He lifted his forehead protector, his sharingan eye misting over in emotion.

"After he saved me…"

He began to choke. He never talked about this with anyone. And with his entire deceased team in varying degrees of life around him now, there was even greater emotion in his thoughts than ever before.

"Over the years, the gift of this sharingan has been incalculable. To measure the worth of it is impossible… But I always tried."

With shaking fingers, he touched his scar.

"There were seventy-seven distinct times that this sharingan, no question, saved me from certain death."

His hand covered his eye as the brimming tears finally spilt over.

"Obito didn't save me once, Tsunade-sama. He saved me over and over and over. The number of times he protected me is beyond measure… But as many times as I was 100% sure, I counted. I can name every single one of those seventy-seven times in detail. Just as monks pray through the 108 ojuzu beads, I have done my own form of piety. Obito's memorial has been my temple, and the moments he has saved me are my mantras. His sacrifice was the most selfless, pure act I have ever witnessed… And it was done for me."

He turned to look at the restrained visage of his old friend across the battlefield.

"Tsunade-sama… How could I not _forgive him_ , when I've asked him every day for the last seventeen years to _forgive me?"_

The two of them continued standing in the power of the moment, stricken wordless by the implication of their discourse. Tsunade wiped her weary face, Kakashi rubbed his leaking eye.

"Obito is a twisted man, and no aspect of his distorted ideas are admirable at all. That said…" Tsunade sighed, "It seems his desire to change the hopelessness of our world is a sentiment that you and I can understand, even share."

"As much as that's true," said Kakashi, "who are we to change it?"

Tsunade lifted her head high, straightened her spine, and set her shoulders.

"I don't know about you… _yet._ " She smiled at him in a very peculiar way, "But _I'm_ the Hokage." 

* * *

Kakashi, his chest ballooning with hope, turned and walked back towards his old teammate who was still heavily and humiliatingly restrained by a flank of ANBU. The fact that he was wearing the uniform of a fallen comrade had them so incensed that their treatment of him was as overtly violent and forceful as possible. Kakashi, having been an ANBU, could sympathize with their feelings. Obito caught his gaze.

"Kakashi…Can you… check on her?" He asked meekly, his eyes burdened and drawn to the ground. He seemed as if he were carrying a tremendous sense of sadness. Kakashi simply nodded his head.

But as he turned towards the tents, an ear-splitting shriek ripped through the somnolent morning. Kakashi immediately ran to the source of the alarm. As he rounded the corner, he realized, much to his horror, that the shout was coming from a familiar tent.

Rin's tent.

 _Oh no._

As he crashed through the entrance, the shinobi medic from Sunagakure was shaking on the floor. She looked up, catching Kakashi's eyes with her own. She was covered in blood.

 _"I'm so sorry, Commander Hatake..."_

* * *

Kakashi rounded the corner outside of the medical tents with more speed than he would have believed himself capable of mere hours before during the battle with Madara. He burst through the tent city and nearly slid on his knees to where Obito was restrained. Obito's eyes, frantic as a wild dog, met Kakashi's, full of panic.

"Kakashi?"

"She's gone, Obito. Tell me who has her, we must pursue them immediately."

Obito began to thrust his body against his captors, who re-doubled their force against him.

"Let me go now! We have to go after her!" Obito bellowed.

The ANBU captain looked incredibly unwilling to let Obito even move freely, but Kakashi implored him, "Jiichi-san, Obito and I must pursue them. This mission was already sanctioned by order of the Hokage. Every second is precious."

"Lady Hokage must remove the rinnegan before we let this bastard move another inch!" The old captain retorted, venom dripping off his tongue.

"We don't have time!" Obito screamed. "I swear on Rin's life, I will return with this rinnegan whole an-"

" _Shut up!"_ Jiichi screamed, his anger boiling over. "You are wearing the uniform of a noble shinobi that is dead _because of you._ You deserve every kind of suffering imaginable!"

"You're right!" Obito shouted, "but what about her? Would you let her die to spite me? What about Commander Hatake? Is he not your fellow ANBU? You would let her die to spite him, too?"

Jiichi was affected, but unmoved. He locked his jaw and redoubled his force against Obito, grinding him into the ground. "Men, double down!" He ordered the whole unit to force Obito further into submission. A squad of angry ANBU with a vendetta fell upon him.

It was at this moment that Kakashi caught Obito's eyes. It was shocking how that teamwork that Minato-sensei had cultivated in them so long before was still as acutely felt nearly two decades later, because Kakashi knew exactly what that look meant.

 _We're getting the hell out of here, right now._

"Are you in?" Obito rasped.

"Yes!"

With that assurance, the group of ANBU were violently thrown back by a burst of chakra so great that it caused Kakashi's ears to deafen. Obito, the source of the explosion, threw his arms behind him in a burst of speed. Kakashi fell into streamlined velocity beside him and the two men disappeared into the forest in a flash so sudden it would have made The Yellow Flash blink.


	6. That Which Stays The Same

A/N: Sorry for the delay, I've been backpacking through Indonesia and enjoying some time home with family for the first time in years. The next one won't be so slow. Thank all of you for your kind reviews.

* * *

 **A Cord of Three Strands**

Chapter VI

 _That Which Stays the Same_

* * *

"His name is Tetsuo. He's a genjutsu genius and master of various kinds of seals. I had to train beneath him for some time in order to develop and execute the seal to extract the tailed beasts." Obito explained as he and Kakashi jumped limb to limb through the forest at breakneck speed. "He is a very elderly man now, but in his youth he infiltrated and posed as a shinobi from several nations. In doing so, he successfully learned, integrated, and improved upon various styles of genjutsu and sealings that run the gamut of expertise. I don't know of a shinobi alive who uses or has created more intricate genjutsu. His seals are incredibly powerful as well."

"Do you have any idea what technique he has used on Rin? And why?" Kakashi asked as they tore through the trees.

"All I know is that Madara said it was made especially for Rin, which makes me think that she would be used to coerce me into giving Madara the rinnegan and forcing him back to life. Madara has been sealed now, so most likely Tetsuo is using this opportunity to his advantage."

"How so?"

"Tetsuo always wanted to obtain a sharingan. In fact, their alliance was, on Madara's side, because he needed a fool-proof sealing technique for the tailed beasts. On Tetsuo's side, he got to learn more about the secrets of the sharingan. Madara was surprisingly forthcoming with him about clan secrets, but he had to be or else he would have never been able to formulate a sealing technique as powerful as he needed for the plan to work."

The two men sprinted across a clearing at full-speed. Kakashi began to feel a weird, uneasy pang in his chest, but he couldn't pinpoint exactly why as he used all of his conscious energy to listen to Obito.

"Perhaps, in the past, he would have wanted this sharingan of mine. Or yours. But if he wants anything now, it's undoubtedly this rinnegan."

"Perhaps Tsunade-sama should have removed it earlier." Kakashi mused. "Are we being led as lambs to the slaughter?"

"What other choice do we have, Kakashi?" Obito asked.

The two men ran in silence into the final outcropping of trees. When they broke through the branches, both of them came to an abrupt stop. Kakashi suddenly realized the reason for his roiling stomach and troubled mind.

There, before the two of them, was the site of what used to be Kannabi Bridge.

Despite the life-altering urgency upon them both, neither man moved. Neither said a word. A flood of years rushed over them. A torrent of memories neither could hold at bay. A tsunami of emotions and all the complications when they remembered who they used to be the last time they stood together at this place.

Kakashi felt like his lungs were going to collapse. Obito couldn't even say a word for the trembling lump in his throat.

After thirty hushed seconds, Kakashi finally whispered,

"It was here that we saved her."

Obito closed his eyes. His shame was overwhelming. If his urgency and care for Rin weren't the utmost priority, not a single thing in the universe would have been able to rally his breaking heart. He felt Kakashi's hand fall heavily on his shoulder. He looked up to see his old friend's eyes lilted in a smile.

"Luckily for you, fate has given you a second chance at a once-in-a-lifetime vow… As it seems has been granted to me, in these eerily similar circumstances…"

Obito's eyes widened as Kakashi repeated the same words he had uttered the night before - when he made Kakashi promise to love and protect Rin - right before he had tried to sacrifice himself to stop Madara.

"Wh-What vow are you talking about?" Obito stuttered.

Kakashi's eyes still smiled, but his eyebrows began to knit together in the center. His eyes shimmered.

"In the shinobi world, those who break the rules are considered trash. But those who don't care about their friends are worse than trash."

Obito felt as if his heart was struck by lightning. Those words he had uttered so long ago, on the day that would alter the course of his entire destiny, were being said unto him again, in this very same place. But this time, the headstrong person he had lectured before had engraved those words into the walls of his now-softened heart, where the echoes reverberated to Obito once more. As if he were a boy again, Obito's heart broke. Unconcealed tears ran down his face.

"You taught me that, Obito. My whole life, my philosophy as a teacher, the very first lesson I taught each of my students, it was what you taught me here. It was here that I learned my own personal nindo, because of you."

The tears didn't stop streaming. Obito wiped his soaking face on the inside of his arm, snot and tears streaking the black arm sock alongside the dirt and blood that had stained it long before he had ever put it on.

"I'm no hero, Kakashi." He stated so low that Kakashi barely heard him.

"Before you were a hero, you were a boy determined to save his friend. And that's exactly what we are going to do now. Let's save Rin again… together."

* * *

Tetsuo's closest hideout was near the Mountain's Graveyard, where he and Madara used to commiserate about Tsuki no Me and the secrets of the sharingan. Two old shinobi together, they plotted and schemed about the ways they would use their prowess to their advantage and achieve their ideals. Though Tetsuo was able to infiltrate the makeshift Shinobi Alliance medical unit by a string of successful, undetected genjutsu techniques, his speed and agility were far from what they used to be. He had to settle for the closest shelter he had, that which Obito – whom he knew as Tobi – would certainly guess and pursue immediately.

But no matter. His demise – and hers – was already a certainty that nothing could stop.

" _Tetsuo!_ " Tobi's voice rang throughout the dank, cold cave and in the deepest part of the old shinobi's ear. "Show yourself immediately!"

Obito and Kakashi inched through the entrance of the cave, their eyes adjusting to the deep darkness. They held their arms in front of them with kunai drawn, stealthily creeping through the shadows. As they rounded the twists and turns of the stony corridor, they saw a dim, blue glow lighting the cold puddles on the floor.

As they turned through the narrow passage, the cave opened up into a dramatically larger space. And there, front and center, was Tetsuo. Standing unafraid, spindly arms like spider legs emerging from the tattered, russet-colored cloak that hid his entire visage, save those thin, veiny arms and bony fingers, seemingly wrapped twice around a walking staff taller than the bent-over old man.

Behind him, an indention in the wall seemed a sort of altar. And on that altar, lay Rin. From right in front of her to about twenty feet out, lining the ceiling of the cave to the floor, were sizzling lasers of chakra, crackling with a spine-chilling amount of power.

"No matter what you try, it's finished, Tobi. Or is that the name they're calling you these days?" Tetsuo yammered.

"Obito." Volunteered Kakashi, though the man in question said nothing. His jaw was set and he glowered at the old man.

"Well then, _Obito_ ," Tetsuo sneered, "You'll give me the rinnegan at once. Otherwise, she'll be locked in a relentless hell for the rest of eternity. There will be no hope of saving her. The seal is irreversible. I know you know what I am capable of."

Obito didn't move. He didn't say a word.

"My life is nearing an end. I have one opportunity for immortality and it lies within your gruesome face. If you refuse, I have no qualms about sending this woman, whom I know you care so much about, to suffer ceaselessly. It would give me great pleasure to bestow unending agony on your soul and hers as a reward for not meeting my demands. I'm a man with nothing to lose."

Obito was unfazed outwardly, but inwardly, his organs seemed to curl into themselves with fear. He knew that Tetsuo wasn't a bluffer. He knew that everything he said was true. He could only hope that the man, who loved to talk, would reveal some information that he could use to save her. He decided to try his luck.

"I'll disable this chakra field you've set and I'll take her back."

"You can't. It's impenetrable. The second those beams touch you, you're done. Not even a kage-level shinobi could withstand the onslaught of pain."

Obito looked him in the eye. "You're bluffing."

"I'm not. And _you know_ that I'm not. The time release on her genjutsu is coming to an end. In mere moments, she'll be gone forever."

Obito lunged at Tetsuo, who didn't even try to dodge his attack, Seizing him by the throat and slamming the old man into a wall, he snarled through gritted teeth, _"I will rip you apart!"  
_  
"Killing me won't break her genjutsu." He replied smarmily.

"What will?!"

"Do you think I would tell you when I can do it to _you_ now, as well?"

Kakashi's eyes darted between the two men. He was trying his best with all the information he had to understand what threat Tetsuo was making towards Obito.

"You can't do that. Madara told me it was made especially for her." Obito countered, tightening his grip on the old man.

Tetsuo's old face twisted in a grin. Barely discernible beneath the shadow of his hood, his yellow eyes came menacingly into view.

"A genjutsu made especially for _the both_ of you. It's inescapable for you." He laughed.

Obito's demeanor remained as stoic as possible, but changed despite his best effort.

"Then why… Why not activate that genjutsu now instead of giving me the option of trading the rinnegan for Rin?"

Tetsuo broke Obito's grip on his throat, putting a small amount of distance between them. He hobbled upright, sputtering as he gulped deep breaths. He moved his hood back subtly, showing the prune-like face of an old man with piercing yellow eyes and a sparse, stringy beard. He smirked, revealing a mostly empty mouth with a jagged collection of fangs on the lower right side of his drooping maw.

"Tobi, you spent many years in my company. Do you think I wouldn't acknowledge all you toiled on my behalf by extending an opportunity to at least show some mercy to a former compatriot? You foolish generation know nothing about honor. Madara and I were of the old guard, the ancient shinobi way. Even when we eventually find ourselves on opposite sides, a little respect is due our previous associates. It's what separates the real shinobi from children that play ninja."

Obito didn't move.

"But in the end, it won't even matter. If you refuse to hand over the rinnegan, I will activate your genjutsu, then use you to kill whoever this one is…" he waved his hand, motioning at Kakashi, "and I'll retrieve that rinnegan from you after he's dead. Then, I'll kill Rin, sending her to eternal anguish. But don't worry… I'll make sure to wake you up, so you can see the completed job. And then I will kill you myself!"

Obito felt incredibly disturbed, but tried his best to calmly analyze everything that Tetsuo said. Before he could come to a full conclusion, Kakashi leapt at Tetsuo with his kunai drawn, but was shocked backwards by an invisible wall of chakra suddenly surrounding the old man. Undeterred, he attacked again, weaving signs, conjuring jutsu in an attempt to penetrate the barrier.

" _What is Kakashi's aim?"_ Obito thought to himself as he watched Kakashi's succession of attempted attacks. With each assault, he was finding a new weakness in the barrier and coming closer to reaching Tetsuo.

"You annoy me, child." Tetsuo warbled. Kakashi didn't relent at all and renewed his efforts. "Cease immediately or I'm going to have Tobi skin you alive!"

"Your threats towards Obito are hollow. Why threaten to have him kill me and not just put me under the same genjutsu as he and Rin and control us all?" Kakashi postulated as he whirred and spun, using lighting elements to pierce the field of chakra.

"You are not a factor in this genjutsu!" He exclaimed, obviously rattled at Kakashi's progress.

"If you were able to cast it on him _and_ Rin, you should be able to cast it on me!" Kakashi shouted.

"The workings of this technique are beyond you!"

"So you're saying that this great and powerful genjutsu of yours won't work on me? Is it because of my sharingan, my ability to see through your charades?!" He held his arm, and the sound of chidori began to screech and ricochet throughout the enclosure.

"That's not it at all! And besides, you have the same eye as Tobi!" The old man sputtered at the size of the gathering attack, "Tobi and Rin have a commonality that you do not share! That is why I'll enjoy watching him gut you!"

 _Tobi and Rin have a commonality that you do not share_.

Kakashi's intent was suddenly made obvious to Obito. Kakashi had hypothesized not that Tetsuo wouldn't cast this genjutsu on Kakashi, but that he _couldn't_. To test his estimate, he attacked rapidly to force Tetsuo's hand into casting the genjutsu on him - which Obito could break with the rinnegan – or to push him for information on _why_ he couldn't cast the genjutsu on Kakashi.

" _So that was his intent—"_

Obito's mind exploded in revelation.

"Our… _commonality_!"

"I know how to save her!" Obito shouted. "But we have to take him out!"

Scrambling towards Tetsuo, weaving all manner of signs, he appeared beside Kakashi. With a combination of lightning and wind style jutsu, they began to penetrate the barrier.

At Obito's words, he shrieked with laughter, bristling shocks of chakra radiating off of him, blowing his hood off to reveal dragon-like horns curled about his mostly-bald head.

"You disrespectful bastard!" The old shinobi screeched, his voice taking on a fiery quality that had been totally absent before, "You had your chance. Now, you shall suffer forever."

The long, grey hair on the sides of his head whipping about him like fire, Tetsuo growled ominously. He weaved a myriad of signs, finishing with the sign of the serpent. Yellow eyes ablaze, he screamed,

"Tormented Soul Seal, _initiate_!"

Kakashi's eyes widened in fear as he whirled towards his friend.

"Obito!"

* * *

No one moved for several seconds. Kakashi couldn't determine what was transpiring, and it seemed that Tetsuo was also having the same reaction.

Obito's body, chakra, and demeanor didn't change. His white hair hung darkly over his eyes as he stared down Tetsuo, but sure enough, he was grinning. Finally, he spoke.

"As I said, Kakashi... We have to finish him."

Tetsuo's eyes dilated dramatically. Frantically, he wove the same series of signs again,

"Tormented Soul Seal, _initiate_!"

Absolutely nothing happened.

 _ **"**_ _Initiate!_ _ **!"**_ He screamed, panic seizing his arrogant countenance.

Obito stepped towards him. With a flash of the rinnegan, the barrier was dispersed and Tetsuo hurled against the far wall of the cave.

Tetsuo's frail body hit the sharp rocks with great force. He crumpled to the cave floor, but still, sluggishly tried to weave the same series of seals again. His bloody face lifted wearily towards Obito as his once-subordinate stepped in front of him.

"That genjutsu isn't going to work on me, Tetsuo."

" _Why_?" The old man wheezed.

A range of emotions played out over his face before he clutched his chest, almost as if reminding himself that his words were true.

"Because the curse tag on my heart is gone."

Tetsuo's face contorted into an image of rage, terror, and despair.

"… _How?_ You should… be… dead…"

Angry tears bit Obito's eyes and blurred his over-powered vision.

"You were the one who created these curse tags, weren't you? You were the one who gave Madara the ability to enslave our will. We were _children_ , you revolting bastard. Children, who had hopes and friends and… dreams. She wanted to be a great healer, like Tsunade of the Sannin. I wanted…"

Surprisingly, he began to sob. He didn't stop speaking.

"I wanted to be the leader of the village, to protect those dear to me. But look at what I became! Even if I had wanted to leave, he chained me to this like a slave! My will, my mind, my heart… Nothing has been my own, not since the second I met him. He owned me. He used me like a disgusting rag and threw me away in the same way. I should have died at Kannabi Bridge!"

He began to choke. The cave was completely silent, save for Obito's sobs and the crackling of the chakra surrounding Rin.

"That… is…" Tetsuo began, feebly, "…the way of… this world."

Tetsuo's face seemed to be fading in anger and in strength.

"This… shinobi… world. Madara wanted… I wanted… to change that. And you did… too."

Obito dried his swollen eyes and looked down at Tetsuo.

"In wanting to change the suffering, you created an even worse form of suffering."

Tetsuo looked at Obito, a tired, old man.

"Tobi, you… did so… as well."

He laid his head against the ground, and in a breath, he was gone.

* * *

The cave was silent, save the occasional sniffling from Obito. He didn't move. Slowly, Kakashi approached him.

"Obito… What is this curse tag? Did this man enslave you?" There was a surprising emotion in Kakashi's voice. As horribly as it pained Obito to detect it, his friend's words were full of pain, but tinged with a lilt of hope.

"I came to Madara of my own will, Kakashi. Don't fool yourself into hoping I am anything more than the monster in front of you." Obito began to pull himself together, his voice frayed, returning into a den of emotional ambivalence after his emotional outburst.

Cautiously, Kakashi said, "You yourself said he enslaved you, just now."

Obito dried his face. He was retreating inside a cover of cold, calculating responses, and Kakashi could see it plainly.

"Tetsuo's dying words were true. I endured so much suffering in this life because of him and Madara. But I…"

He turned to face Kakashi, his eyes downcast and plagued.

"My torment had a name - Madara. And I literally adopted that name and walked the earth, causing more suffering than could ever be measured. I have, no doubt, tormented a thousand Obitos. I have slain a thousand…"

His now-steady voice trembled, and he couldn't say her name.

"I can never atone. I can never redeem. For me, there is only punishment. I deserve the eternity of anguish that Tetsuo has placed on Rin's shoulders. That is why…"

He stepped forward, stopping before the chakra beams that Tetsuo had placed to guard Rin's body.

"That is why I can endure this pain before me. Tetsuo drastically underestimated the amount of suffering I've already lived through, with Rin's dream my only consolation. He has no idea what I'm willing to endure if Rin - _actually Rin_ \- is at the end of this suffering."

"So… Your idea of saving her is to bear the torture of just… muscling through?" Kakashi asked, skeptically.

"You might not understand, but my whole life, in some sense, has been the bearing of burdens large enough to swallow me whole… and all of that with no reason. But…"

He looked at Rin with heavy eyes.

"If my entire life has been a trial run to this twenty feet in front of me, my suffering has a reason. It is to sacrifice my body for hers, to exchange this nest of evil for a sanctuary of mercy."

Kakashi felt himself begin to tremble with fury.

"So you intend to die?" His angry voice echoed through the cave.

Obito didn't respond.

"You coward! Live! Live and face the consequences of your actions! With Rin by our side, with Naruto's nindo influencing the shinobi world… Who knows what we might find?"

Obito didn't move.

"If it's as I understand… You were a slave. You didn't have the choice to run. Now that the curse tag is somehow gone… Look! You helped save us from Madara, you are going to save Rin. Look at the choices you are making now that the cursed seal isn't a part of you anymore. Could it be that it had a greater influence on you than you imagined?!"

After a few seconds of silence, Obito replied slowly,

"It's too late, Kakashi."

Kakashi was exasperated, emotional, empty. "I will do everything I can to plead your case with the village and the other nations."

Obito huffed. It was a gesture of appreciation, but an acknowledgement of futility.

"Who would forgive me?" he said quietly.

The air was still, quietude blanketing everything. A pregnant pause, and then,

"I would." Kakashi answered in a low, gravelly voice.

Obito turned and stared at Kakashi, an unreadable, but poignant look on his face. Uncharacteristically open and sincere, his mouth moved to speak when the cave was filled with an ear-piercing wail.

" **OBITO!** "

* * *

Both men jerked their faces towards Rin. Her body was coming up from the slab of stone, her back arching, her limbs locking. Her eyes were wide open, yet unseeing. Her mouth, gaping, she screamed once more - his name - as clear as day.

"OBITO!"

"Rin!" He shouted, and before either man knew what was happening, he shoved himself into the glowing beams of chakra.

His response was so involuntary that he didn't have time to think, and he was halfway through the beams before Kakashi even knew what happened. However, his quick response was soon emptied of advantages, and a

tearing

ripping

searing pain,

the likes of which he had never felt in his life,

brutally seared into his body.

He was emptied of breath, his powerful eyes rolled back in his head. It seemed that he was a tiny speck in an ocean of debilitating torment. The unyielding surges were so absurd, so mind-bogglingly atrocious, that it seemed his brain was unable to think a single thought. He couldn't see, he couldn't hear.

But somehow, _somehow_ , he kept walking.

Despite forgetting how to breathe, blink, see, and hear…

Somehow, he kept walking.

The force of the beams bore down like amplified gravity, and the horrifying anguish he was in was prolonged as his movements felt as if he were trapped in molasses. Nevertheless, somehow, some way, he persisted towards her.

Kakashi's mouth hung open beneath his mask. The smell of burning flesh filled the small enclosure, and he could hear the popping of Obito's skin sizzling. The gravitational pull was contorting his body towards the ground, yet he still advanced. He wanted to help him somehow… But he was struck dumb by the profound horror of every shriek emanating from Obito's tearing throat.

He neared the largest beam of all, the last one which separated him from Rin. Obito had no idea how he was going to make it through, but instinctually, he girded up his right side, raising his right arm and upper torso as a shield for his body as he made one more agonizing push through.

Kakashi felt his stomach lurch in a vulgar wave of nausea as he watched Obito's right arm explode.

He stood before her, a mangled wreck of what appeared to be a human man. He was bleeding profusely from the garbled mess of flesh and make-shift Zetsu grafts that had been his prosthetic arm, now in dangling shreds. His face appeared even more battered than usual, his own blood in splatters across the fresh burns that covered most of his body. The armored ANBU clothing had provided a measure of protection, but it was falling off his body in swaths.

If he hadn't have been so absorbed with saving Rin, he would have assessed the severity of his wounds and concluded that they were fatal… But now, she was before him once more.

Her eyes were wide, but clouded. Her brows knit together in distress, her mouth hung open. She murmured indiscernibly.

He knew what he had to do, and though he knew he had but little time, he couldn't make himself move quickly. He brought his remaining hand to his mouth, removing what was left of the heavy black glove with his teeth. He hesitated, knowing what was next.

He had to touch her, though he felt that doing so would defile her.

Slowly, he laid his bare hand on her chest. He noted with unutterable sadness the deep matte purple of his fingernails… The reason a secret to everyone but himself.

He needed to close his eyes and use senjutsu to pinpoint her heart tag. It was the only way to dismantle it without gutting her the way Kakashi had gutted them both. However, Obito was a seasoned veteran of a shinobi, having years to test the curse seal, knowing exactly where the obstruction emanated from, knowing precisely how to best position a death blow to allow the seal to take the brunt of the damage. Rin was a scared, young girl who had no time to strategize her way out of death. She chose to take Kakashi's strike through her chest, effectively killing her without destroying her curse seal.

His search of her body was far from effective, not just because he was bleeding and dismembered and at the end of his life. It was because he noticed every little thing about her.

The hue of her eyes, even while clouded, was so specifically hers. The color of earth, trapped beneath a layer of amber.

Her hands, so small, with slender fingers. There were so many times those little hands had grabbed his, pulling him outside of his self-preservation. He had spent his whole life wondering what would happen if he took her hand in his with confidence and meaning. The day he should have died, her trembling hands held his – now, the only one he had left, the same that was now placed on her chest.

He noticed he could feel small indentions and ridges beneath the thin material of her gown… And he knew it was because she bore the same heavy scarring that had come to remind him only of himself.

His mind wondered as his senjutsu worked on auto-pilot.

If that one boulder had never fell… Would his entire life have been different? Could he have protected her from the horror that befell her? Could he have saved Kakashi from the plague of loneliness and regret? Could he have fought _for_ sensei instead of against him, paving a way for a more stable village, a more stable world?

Could the world he sacrificed every happiness to attain have actually been on the very same path he walked back then?

Even as the blood poured from his body, even as he began to struggle to stay in the moment, he felt a strangling weight grip his heart.

 _If only._

Even with the powers of sharingan and rinnegan, his sight was beginning to swirl and blur. He fought the urge to let his eyes roll back and focused on her heart tag.

" _Here. Right here."_ His hand steadied itself over the spot. He could feel a massive distortion of chakra twirling in and out, very directly centered where her heart was beating. He frowned, even in all the pain he was in. This was the part of his plan that hadn't been fully fleshed out and was entirely unknowable until he could assess her himself. It seemed that the genjutsu attached to this tag wasn't going to be as easily dispelled as he'd hoped. Even if he could remove her heart tag, it would unleash the jutsu like an unfettered miasma. She certainly wouldn't be strong enough to fight off the jutsu, even without the heart tag trapping it inside of her. And at this point, he couldn't fight it, either. It seemed that there was only one available option to him.

He closed his eyes, grinning in self-defeat.

 _"This is what I deserve."_

Though he knew he had only seconds to perform what needed to be done, he found himself in a moment of rare calm. Perhaps it was the enormity of what he was about to do that allowed himself to indulge in her, but in those seconds he looked upon her as his old self, the boy that always loved her and was within his right to love her. He didn't try to keep her safe from the monster he knew that he was.

He moved his hand from her chest to her face. The dark violet of his nail blended against the bright markings on her jaw and cheek as he soothed her with his thumb. His long, blood-stained fingers found their way behind her head, and he cradled her softly as they made small circles in the down of her chestnut hair. He drank her in, his sharingan recording every single feature and branding it into his mind forever.

 _"Rin, I am so sorry. I couldn't be who you needed. I couldn't be who anyone needed. I can never atone for what I've done, but…"_

He began to lower himself close to her face and realized with a fright that as his body lowered, he couldn't seem to find the strength to pick it back up again. He was dying, but he had to have this last, final moment. He laid his forehead against hers.

 _"I would've… died for you… so long ago_."

His hand began weaving slow signs.

Kakashi, who had been following Obito with his eye, jumped with a start.

"Obito! Those signs are…!"

A tear fell from his ruined face onto her porcelain skin.

 _"And though everything… has changed…"_

"That's for sealing!"

 _"…That has stayed the same."_

A flash of light filled the cave, Obito exploded in one final roar as his chakra pierced through her heart tag, disintegrating it upon impact. In the same breath, he captured and sealed the genjutsu within himself. He looked upon Rin to see her completely still. He caught her desperately up in his arm and, clutching her fearsomely, managed to lock eyes with Kakashi before he succumbed to the pressing darkness.


	7. Mercy

**A Cord of Three Strands**

Chapter VII

 _Mercy_

* * *

First, it was the muffled hush that barely seemed to exist on the peripheries of total darkness.

Second, it was the distinction of unrecognizable voices. _  
_

Third, it was the fuzziness of sounds developing sharp ends and piercing, like needles, into a consciousness that didn't exist until this very moment.

Fourth, it was shifting shadows, formless and perceptible only from the right side.

Fifth, it was the ineffable, mind-scraping pain.

Then, as if being born for the second – or third – or _fourth_ – time, Obito Uchiha was brought screaming into the world.

" _He's awake."_

"Fetch the commander immediately!"

" _Can we give him something for the pain?"_

"How could anyone live through this?"

Obito began to twist in agony.

 _"Where… How…?"_ He croaked before being knocked breathless by the burning all over his body.

No one said a word to him. He opened his eyes and realized that there was something over them that obstructed his view. He tried to move his left hand to his face, but soon realized it was restrained. He tried moving his right side, but he only felt a heavy numbness.

" _Can't… see…"_ His voice was so crackly and deep that he wouldn't have recognized it himself.

There seemed to be some shifting and shuffling of feet and hushed whispers in the room. Soon, a small, frightened voice answered him.

"Sir, you are in the critical care unit of Konohagakure's medical facility. You should also know that you are our ward on loan."

Not comprehending the words said to him, Obito struggled to remember anything at all. Was he dead? Was this hell?

" _Water._ "

Another uncomfortable silence.

"Sir, I'm obligated to tell you that we cannot give you access to anything that you could weaponize."

" _Wh…What?"_ he moaned, failing once more to understand.

"N-Ninjutsu, sir."

Confused and in massive pain, his ability to even make sense of words began to slip. Slowly, he began fading back into darkness.

 _"Pl…ease…"_

"Sir, I am obligated to…"

The light from beyond the bandage faded, and Obito returned to shadows once more.

* * *

A long, uncertain time passed. Before he was aware of slipping into consciousness, he could see, unabated this time. All was dark and quiet. Beyond the drawn curtains, the room was enveloped in an orange glow as sunset filtered through heavy cotton.

He was staring, unseeing and uncomprehending for a long time before he noticed a silhouette. Slowly, he turned his head towards the figure beside him.

"So you're finally awake?" The still, measured, familiar voice trickled into his ear softly.

Obito stared a long time, his mind working at a snail's pace.

"Ka—Kashi."

"Oi."

Neither man said anything for several minutes. Obito was constantly aware that something, perhaps many things, were troubling him beyond his ability to remember. He tried to recall anything at all, but constantly came up void. Before he was even sure of what he remembered, the name etched into his heart came bubbling up.

" _Rin_." He drawled. The name on his tongue jolted him as soon as he said it. He jerked to move upwards but found himself unable to move through his restraints.

"What happened?!"

Kakashi steadily laid a hand on his old friend's chest.

"Just settle down." He soothed in a calm voice. His restrained manner somehow hit Obito as suspicious, and it was this that brought him back to his senses.

"Where is she? Is she okay?" His garbled voice was so dry Kakashi almost couldn't tell what he said.

"Obito, everything is okay. Just relax." Kakashi said emotionlessly, applying more pressure to Obito's chest.

Obito, now returning to capacity, was beginning to feel desperate and patronized. He shifted to swing his arm and break Kakashi's grip on him when he realized that nothing was swinging. He looked down.

His right arm was completely gone. He felt a sickness in his stomach so profound it made him dizzy.

 _Just like that time in the Mountain's Graveyard._

Kakashi laid his hand on Obito's shoulder.

"Obito, I have a lot to tell you… And I can't until I know you are calm and can understand me."

Closing his eyes, he centered himself as best he could and began breathing deeply. He nodded once in compliance, though he did not open his eyes.

Kakashi stood and moved towards the curtain. He pulled it back slightly, allowing the setting sun to spill into the room and illuminate everything in a dusky blaze.

"Can you see?" Kakashi asked.

Opening his eyes, he began to look around the room. He moved his head and realized that his left side wasn't seeing anything.

"Your rinnegan has been removed. You only have sight on your right side."

He nodded, familiar with the feeling of having only one eye.

Kakashi continued,

"Your original eye had a seal placed over it, which is why you couldn't see when you awoke earlier today. The medical staff was unsure of what to do, so they called for me. Now, it has been removed."

Obito nodded once more, then asked,

"Am I allowed to keep this one?"

A weary look washed over Kakashi. "I had to fight for that. I'm honestly not sure if they're going to let you keep it beyond your recovery… It all depends."

His spine bristled at the thought of being totally blind, but calmed once more when he began to accept that _this_ is what he deserved. He had no claim to this eye, though it was his.

"Depends on?"

Kakashi took a deep breath before returning to the chair beside the bed. He situated himself, leaning forward and placing his elbows on his knees.

"A lot of things have changed since you've been out. It may take me a while to explain everything, and you're not strong now. Try to stay with me for all of this."

Obito shifted his body into an upright position, although moving was excruciating. He gasped as he lifted his body up, leaning on his left side to hold the weight. Once he was marginally comfortable, he nodded his head as a signal for Kakashi to continue.

"As I said, you've been in a coma for some time. More than two months to be exact."

 _Two months?_

"Back in the cave, after the fight with Tetsuo, your body was heavily damaged. You lost your right arm. Most of your body was burned. You sustained internal injuries as well as second and third degree burns. Your right leg was dislocated at the hip. You were really banged up. But even through all of that," Kakashi shifted in his chair uncomfortably, "You managed to reach her."

Obito connected his dark eye immediately to Kakashi's, and before he could even ask, Kakashi added,

"You saved her from a horrible death and internalized the jutsu meant to torment her forever. But she hasn't yet awoken from her sleep. Aside from the physical complications of Madara stabbing her, she has sustained no other injuries. But for reasons unknown to us, she isn't responding to anything we've tried. Her state has been very similar to yours. As far as we can tell, it's a side effect of the jutsu."

Obito stared at Kakashi, a storm of thoughts and feelings and questions crashing around in his mind.

"I… removed the curse tag." He said.

"I know."

Both men sat in quiet for a long while.

"When… will she wake?"

Kakashi looked heavily at the floor.

"I don't know, Obito. The jutsu is an intricate one that we've yet to figure out." He shifted his gaze back up, his one visible eye smiling hopefully. "But, it seems that you beat it."

"Wh-what do you mean?"

"Well, we're not certain, but that jutsu was supposed to keep you locked away in a dreamlike-state until the time-release ran out, effectively killing you. It was the cursed heart tag that made it impossible to fight the jutsu. But since you don't have the cursed tag anymore, it would appear that you've outlasted the jutsu, since you are here with us once more."

Obito stared at Kakashi.

"I can't remember anything."

"Regardless, it would appear that you won, Obito. Which brings me to another point."

Kakashi hunkered down further, leaning in closer towards his friend's bed.

"You are a technically a prisoner of Konohagakure. You are in this medical facility because it is the best in the village, far superior to the medical care in the prison. No one knew if you were going to live or die, and your chances for survival seemed slim for a long time. Regardless, the medical staff has tried their best to care for you. However, you caused quite a stir when you broke free of the ANBU and now everyone is far more intimidated of you than before. You've been given good medical care, but you've also been denied some things. The staff is not allowed to give you anything that you might manipulate with ninjutsu. They can't even give you a glass of water in case you used it against them to escape. You've been administered electrolytes, saline, and hydration through an IV, but they don't trust you with anything external, not even a cup of water."

Kakashi reached down to the floor and grabbed a bottle of water. He flipped it and held it out to Obito.

"I'm not the staff, though."

Obito took the bottle in a shaky grip, dark nails and white knuckles gripping it clumsily. His restraint stretched tautly as he held it towards his face. He leaned forward awkwardly and drank slowly, but deeply, from the bottle. When he spoke again, his voice sounded much more like himself.

"So, I'm to be executed?"

Kakashi didn't move for so long that Obito forced himself to look. Kakashi's eye was fixed on Obito's in an unreadable, yet open and promising gaze.

"Many things have and are changing. You aren't to be put to death."

In the days to come, Obito would feel many emotions about Kakashi's response, but the very first one was startling surprise. He couldn't pinpoint his feelings at all because the answer was so entirely unexpected.

"Are you serious?" The astonishment colored his voice more than he wanted to let on.

"While you've been out, the leaders of the Allied Shinobi Forces have met several times, trying to understand what the best way forward is, not just as separate nations, but together, as one. The Kage hope to keep the villages unified, though distinct. The Fourth Great Shinobi War is something that we hope to remember as the catalyst that brought about the end of our wars and fighting against each other."

Whether Kakashi realized his phrasing or not, Obito trembled at the implication.

"During their council, Naruto, who has been hailed as the great hero of the war, was invited to come and speak to The Kage about what he sees as the path to peace. His journey is a continuation of his master's legacy, and one Tsunade-sama seems very intent on nurturing to fruition. So, a proposition has been made."

"Wh-what proposition?"

Kakashi tried to conceal the feeling in his voice.

"It concerns you directly, Obito."

For the first time in a long time, Obito felt like a scared little boy.

"M-me?"

"Naruto has come to believe that forgiveness is the only way to true and lasting peace. Perhaps if his track record wasn't so high, he'd be labeled an unrealistic dreamer who doesn't have a true grasp of the human condition. But seeing as his insight into the suffering of others and the sharing of their pain has elicited so many impossible conversions, he has proven that his philosophy bears substantial influence, even in this broken shinobi world.

However, this hasn't come without considerable pushback. The way that our governments and village systems work are predicated upon the expectation of bloodshed, and even the most idealistic leaders don't believe that their people will be able to forgive. But because of his support among most of The Kage, the feudal lords and village councils have decided to give their backing to a new, experimental process."

"Experimental?" One and two word questions were all he could manage.

"It is being implemented, first in Konoha, on a trial basis. Everything about this process is completely new and has never been tried - much less attempted - in a shinobi village before, because it directly contradicts the entire system of shinobi."

Obito stared at Kakashi, waiting for an explanation. He was momentarily emptied of words.

"In our village systems, criminals beget sentences worthy of the consequences of their crimes. Murderers are, typically, murdered themselves. Sentences that fall short of capital punishment are often considered to be a prolonged period of suffering in which the same agony the perpetrator has inflicted upon others is visited upon himself. This is true whether that sentence is a week or a lifetime.

However, it was said that in the old days, before the weaponizing of chakra and the spread of shinobi militarization, that penal systems were not used primarily for punishment, but for rehabilitation."

Obito didn't move, but inside of himself, he was shaking.

"Naruto shared his story with The Kage. He talked about how, due to the fallen nature of our shinobi system, he was tasked with raising himself within the confines of an entire village that was encouraged to hate him, whether directly or indirectly. The good intentions of the best of us weren't enough to shield him from the vitriol visited upon him on a daily basis. It was nothing short of a miracle that he turned out as he is. But even with his greatest efforts, it was a power completely outside of himself that changed his perspective and with it, his life. Were it not for his academy teacher, Umino Iruka, seeing past his horrible behavior and into his need, it's not unlikely that Naruto himself could have one day grown to despise the village and, eventually, attempt to destroy it.

Naruto insisted it was his long and lonely companionship with pain that allowed him to see it in others, including unrepentant enemies. His acknowledgement of that pain is what changed them, time and time again, perhaps because in our current shinobi system, there is no room for such empathy. In fact, it's likely that he may have been the very first person in the entire lives of his enemies to value looking into their agony and acknowledging that pain."

Kakashi shifted his gaze towards Obito, who was staring dead-eyed into the wall.

"Do you remember Shinobi Rule #25?"

A long silence passed.

"A shinobi must never show his true feelings under any circumstances, no matter what happens." Obito rasped.

"Naruto has never kept this rule. In fact, it seems that his very existence flies in the face of a majority of rules that shinobi have been tasked into keeping closer than religion."

Obito said nothing.

"During his appearance before The Kage, many rules of shinobi were addressed, and many dismantled by his own experience. This isn't to say that Naruto is somehow a god, or all-knowing. But somehow, he has become a true user of ninshu, which surpasses what a shinobi is able to do, even with a lifetime of commitment. Ninshu is the true power of chakra, that which was fabled to connect the world not to war, but to peace.

In my life, I've not experienced ninshu in the way that Naruto seems able to practice it. But I have seen shadows of it within certain moments. Moments when I first came to realize that the observation of rules aren't what makes one a great man or a great shinobi. I first saw it when my father protected his friends despite knowing it would lead to a path of great humiliation and, eventually, death. And I saw it most prominently when my best friend once told me that a shinobi who doesn't treasure their friends is worse than trash."

Kakashi noticed the shadows gathering around Obito's lone eye.

"Becoming a sensei was one of the most difficult, yet healing, things I've ever done. On my first truly challenging assignment with my team, we encountered Momochi Zabuza of the Blood Mist. It was then that I first saw Naruto's proclivity towards piercing the heart of even the most hardened man. In the mist, after his own subordinate freely and willingly died for him, Zabuza himself, the man who slaughtered his own friends even as an academy student, said, 'Perhaps it is impossible for a shinobi to kill their emotions and live only as tools.' This was something I began musing on for years to come.

As I began to consider the importance of emotions, even in the life of a shinobi, I felt things within me shift that had never shifted since I had you, Rin, Minato-sensei, and my father in my life. I begrudgingly accepted Team Seven, especially since there were two boys on that team that I knew would rip old wounds fresh. But it turned out that having the image of Minato-sensei in Naruto and an aspect of you through Sasuke were incredibly healing things for me. And while Sakura is not like Rin in many ways, she glued the team together in the same way that Rin always did for us. She guarded them emotionally, truly cared for them, and tried everything within her power to help the two of them. I saw Rin in her… And at times I was uncertain what to do, I tried to remember what Minato-sensei would do, and then my way became clear."

Kakashi smiled beneath his mask.

"It turns out that trying to conceal my feelings, that trying to hide my emotions, was actually what was keeping me in an isolated way of life. Once I cracked the door of myself open to others, even just slightly, my quality of life improved in a way I hadn't felt since the days I was part of Team Minato.

I agree with Naruto on this. The reason this hell of a shinobi world exists is largely due to the fact that all of us, even those with the best of intentions, are expected to submit ourselves to rules that perpetuate the brokenness of this system. I can look to Naruto as a testament. He was the son of my master, of a man that I dearly loved… Yet I kept my distance from him because seeing him was like seeing Minato-sensei every day. How could I keep Shinobi Rule #25 and never show my true feelings when every time I saw him, I felt like crying?"

Kakashi sighed deeply, his eye dancing with sorrow, shame, and regret.

"I was just as much a part of contributing to Naruto's despair as the children who bullied him and the adults who abused him. I didn't commit sins of commission, but sins of omission. By pretending he was nothing to me, by keeping my distance from him whenever I saw him, by not entering his life until he was twelve years old… I, too, caused him to suffer. Once Asuma's daughter was born, Shikamaru has been ever-present. He hasn't missed a single milestone in her life. She will grow up still being taught by her father in the teachings that he entrusted to Shikamaru. In essence, he is the bridge that will connect that orphan child to a father that would have treasured her every day of his life. But Naruto suffered as a true orphan. I could have been – I should have been a brother to him, a father to him. I could have allowed Minato-sensei to teach Naruto through me."

"The Third Hokage issued a gag order… It wasn't your fault." Obito rasped. Kakashi was genuinely surprised to hear Obito defend him.

"Even so," Kakashi sighed, "I was more concerned with following the rules than what truly mattered. Lord Third had good intentions in mind, but running a village is a tremendous task. While he provided for the essentials in Naruto's life, he wasn't able to fill the void left in his life by the loss of his parents. Naruto had food, but wasn't nourished. He had access to education, but was never taught by the love of a family. Naruto fell through the cracks. That is also a curse of the shinobi world… Prioritizing the mission, never asking why, never talking back, grinding forward towards victory while never addressing the losses made by our own hands. That is the way of shinobi…

Until now."

"I still… don't get it." Obito admitted, unwilling to tear his gaze from the wall.

"Konohagakure has been commissioned, along with varying degrees of cooperation from the other villages, to implement a criminal correctional model based not upon the idea of punishment, but of rehabilitation."

Obito didn't move. He remained so still that Kakashi wondered if he was even breathing. Unwilling to keep the conversation going without his involvement, Kakashi stopped and waited for Obito to respond in any way. After what felt like a very long time, Obito finally started,

"S-So…"

He stopped, breathing several deep breaths before continuing.

"I…"

He couldn't rope the onslaught of his thoughts into words. He fell completely silent, but shifted his gaze to Kakashi's feet, in an effort to beg his old friend to continue without expressing the words. Kakashi leaned in and placed a delicate, yet weighty hand on Obito's bandaged shoulder.

"It's difficult to say so early on, but, possibly, with your total cooperation… you might be pardoned in full and reintegrated back into the village."

Even though Kakashi's lengthy, one-sided conversation had been hinting at such for a while now, the actual reality of his words were so powerful that Obito felt lightning strike the very core of his being.

Instantly, a sense of hope, brightness, and freedom welled up in his chest, the sensation so full _\- so irresistibly full_ \- he felt he might burst into pieces…

Yet, immediately following was a sense of shame, guilt, and punishment even greater than his hope, so consuming that every feeling of light was swallowed up by a powerful despair. Even if the absolutely impossible prospect of the village offering him forgiveness was a reality, was there really any way – any way at all – that he could ever forgive _himself_?

The understanding that he did not deserve such forgiveness fell upon him as a crushing weight, and all the beauty and glory of the seconds prior felt like a cruel and agonizing joke. Even if reality allowed him a free pass, he had to maintain a sense of justice, even if – no, _especially_ _if_ – it included martyring himself.

"I can't."

Kakashi didn't move and he didn't react.

"Can't what?"

Obito shifted his eye to capture Kakashi's. He hoped his gaze contained his stone-sure resolve to sacrifice himself unto death for the betterment of the world. What Kakashi saw was a flickering between anger and sadness, certainty and hesitation.

"I…" He stopped, clearing his gravelly voice,

"I… do not agree to these terms."

His answer hung in the room, and as much as Obito wanted to cling to the certainty of his response, to the power of his idealism, to the depth to which he deserved absolute punishment, he found himself waiting uncomfortably for Kakashi to answer.

"Before you try locking yourself away, try to understand the lengths to which I have gone for you, Obito." Kakashi whispered in a measured, but suppressed, tone.

"If you were me, could you do it?" Obito's voice quaked.

"I was asked to become Hokage."

The room fell silent as the shadows of evening crept across the wood-grain floor. Obito had no idea how to answer. The shadows grew longer.

"Kakashi, that's—"

"I said no." He interrupted.

Stunned, Obito began to feel the blood roil inside him.

"You idiot! How could you say no? Why in the world would you—"

"So I could help you recover."

Obito fell silent, though his mouth hung halfway open.

"This new system of rehabilitation is incredibly fragile. I had a hard enough time advocating for Sasuke's enrollment, but it was nearly impossible to get them to agree to admitting you, too. In order to do that, I had to commit my _entire life_ to your rehabilitation process. That means that I am wholly committed to every aspect of your healing and I will walk alongside you through all the requirements that the council has agreed upon before you can be considered rehabilitated.

So before you are so eager to throw your life away, consider that I've already done that for you. It's my turn to sacrifice for you… Don't make my offering meaningless!"


	8. The Chance to Get Something Back

**A Cord of Three Strands**

Chapter VIII

 _The Chance to Get Something Back_

* * *

Obito hadn't said a thing after Kakashi's admission. He couldn't find the words needed to convey the level of his despair, nor his anger at Kakashi for turning down the Hokage position simply so he could babysit a mostly-dead casing of a man who wished for death every second the beating of his heart betrayed him. Kakashi was deserving of a face of stone, while Obito wasn't even fit for stoning.

Days had passed since he had awoken to Kakashi sitting beside his bed. His dark, despondent thoughts roiled inside his feeble shell, the poison inside of him fermenting until his peace of mind was intoxicated by hopelessness, resentment, and rage.

Extremely few shinobi had ever even reached the point that they could be considered Hokage tier, and of those very few, significantly fewer had ever been asked. And here, Kakashi had been; yet, he turned it down in some mind-boggling attempt to save the soul Obito didn't even have.

He felt his ears redden in the heat of anger and shame.

 _That idiot._

He shifted his one eye towards the window. He could see black clouds gathering in the distance beyond Hokage Mountain, the ominous pick-up of the wind causing the lush green leaves to dance, their pale-white undersides quivering in anticipation of the oncoming storm.

Some deep, lonely, nameless feelings passed through him.

" _I could honor his position, just like the time Minato-sensei told me about The White Fang and I deferred to Kakashi as my captain. I could choose to obey his judgement, and maybe something good could come out of this hellish existence…"_

The howling of the wind drove the edges of darkness into the village. Obito watched as the shadows changed the color and atmosphere of the room. Soon, he could see his own reflection much more clearly in the window as the light around him dimmed.

Against the defenses he had built, he remembered another day, just like this…

* * *

Racing through the forest, the smell of fire and enormous pillars of smoke climbing higher and higher…

His feet, pruning and waterlogged, couldn't carry him fast enough.

" _Please… Please…"_ He prayed as he ran, the heavy sleeves of his black robe with the red clouds flapping behind him.

* * *

Obito physically shook his head to rid his mind of that day, yet the lingering of those feelings powerfully colored his already deeply gloomy mood.

" _I am the oncoming storm. I can't bring light to this village when everything in me is darkness. Perhaps the best way I can culminate life in this place is to lay my rotting heart in the ground."_

Sadly, he shifted his eye. The trail of light just beneath his door was interrupted by one small shadow near the corner that belonged to a chair which had been occupied by his old friend for the last six days. Kakashi seemingly only left to eat, sleep, and take another vigil beside Rin,

" _I'm sorry, 'Captain'. I can't let you squander your valuable life on mine."_

Quietly, a gentle rapping at the door beckoned him from his resolve. Without waiting for an answer, Kakashi slipped his head through the door.

"It looks like a storm is coming." He said conversationally. "That's going to make the rest of the day more complicated."

"How so?" Obito asked.

"Soon, the ANBU Black Ops will arrive. They will escort you from the hospital to a holding cell where you will continue to receive treatment. I asked the council and Tsunade-sama to keep you here as long as possible, but you are no longer in critical condition and you've had nearly a week to recuperate since gaining consciousness, so the hospital staff is becoming more intimidated by the day. You will need to continue recuperating in a more secure area."

Hands leisurely stuffed in his pockets, Kakashi approached Obito's bed, but stopped to look out the window at the oncoming tempest.

"You need to completely cooperate with everything they say. This is the first thing you can do to gain trust with them."

Neither of them spoke for a long moment, and Obito felt as if there was something else weighing on Kakashi's mind.

"Obito…"

Kakashi leaned his head up towards the ceiling and sighed deeply.

"There's… something that I didn't want to happen, but the inter-village council, the daimyo, and even Tsunade-sama wouldn't budge on it."

Still looking up at the ceiling, Kakashi explained.

"Once you arrive at the medical facility, you will be fitted with a… monitor."

Kakashi looked at Obito.

"An… internal monitor."

Despite his self-sacrificial ideology a mere moment before, Obito felt ready to dig down and fight as a flash of defiance colored his vision.

"They're going to put a damned seal inside of me again?!" He snarled.

"I wish there was another way. You have to remember that what we're attempting here is unprecedented. Even if the village has accepted this, it's still very uncomfortable for them. But I promise, this seal isn't like Madara's."

Obito barely heard his words. He was already feeling like an indentured servant towards Kakashi for the sacrifice he made on his behalf, but to be subject to another will-altering curse tag was nothing short of slavery.

"I won't be a slave to this village, Kakashi!" Obito roared.

Kakashi put his hands up defensively.

"It's not like that! The seal isn't a curse tag, it's a chakra monitor."

Obito glared at Kakashi, and for the first time since he was the Ten Tails' jinchuriki, Kakashi thought that he looked cold and murderous.

"I won't do it." He seethed underneath labored, furious breaths.

Kakashi tried his best to diffuse the situation, but knew it would be difficult to get Obito to agree to anything that resembled a curse tag once more.

"This decision was beyond my control. And honestly, considering what our specific situation has been, I think it's more than fair."

Obito locked his jaw and glowered darkly. The wild-haired mediator closed his eyes and exhaled in distress.

"You will receive a lifetime ban on chakra-related activities, particularly ninjutsu and genjutsu. If you execute another jutsu ever again, the monitor, which has been bound by chakra to emergency flares around the village, will be set off. The sky around the village will light up and everyone will be aware that you have broken the terms of your rehabilitation. A pack of ninja dogs will be summoned to track you and a siren will sound. This will alert everyone that you have broken your promise to the village."

Kakashi looked seriously at Obito.

"If this happens, there will be no more second chances. It will be seen as the final, ultimate betrayal. Once the ninja dogs sniff you out, ANBU will be released to find and neutralize you upon sight… by whatever means necessary."

All of this was a lot for Obito to take in, despite that the circumstances lent him to believe that the terms were appropriate.

"I can't accept the monitor, Kakashi. I…"

He balled up his fist.

"I can't live like that."

Kakashi sat gently on the edge of Obito's bed, careful not to touch any part of him that still might be in pain.

"Obito, you won't get to live if you don't accept these terms. Perhaps once you prove yourself to the village, they'll feel that such measures are unnecessary."

The two men sat quietly for a long time as the storm rolled closer. The wind whipped a branch from a nearby tree against the hospital window. The branch pounded itself against the glass pane.

"I won't accept this, Kakashi."

The spindly fingers of the tree scraped the glass threateningly.

"This is all there is, Obito. This is the only deal we have. You have to accept it. There will be no more bargaining."

Kakashi watched Obito carefully, praying and hoping that his calm, logical approach could quell the emotional turmoil within his friend.

Obito was fighting something deep within, that was something of which Kakashi was certain. His tortured eye tried it's best to keep the struggle beneath layers of secrecy, but Kakashi could tell what was happening even without the sharingan's perception.

Obito looked sadly at Kakashi with impenetrable resolve.

"I'm going to refuse the terms."

 _And you're going to become Hokage._

Kakashi stared at Obito, and just as he turned his body defensively against the suggestion, just as he was readying his astonished, angry rebuttal, a young medic came crashing breathless through the door. His panting heaved his lean body as he captured Kakashi's surprised glance with his own incredulous eyes.

"Commander Hatake… Rin Nohara is awake."

* * *

Kakashi's hand flew to his masked mouth reactively. Obito didn't move a single muscle, but the hot river pulsing inside his bloodstream shifted to arctic ice.

Aside from Kakashi's half-gloved hand, neither man moved, spoke, breathed.

At the other end of the hallway, a scuffle and commotion seemed to be occurring. The medic glanced down the hall and took off in a flash, leaving both of Rin's old teammates mute and still as stones.

Kakashi lifted himself off the bed and realized his legs were trembling. In a second or two he had his bearings, and he began to rush towards the door after the medic.

"Kakashi, _wait_!" Obito's panicked voice drew Kakashi's attention back into the room he was suddenly desperate to leave.

"I have to go, Rin needs…" He couldn't say _me_ , so he stopped and hastily glanced back towards Obito.

"Tell her I died. Tell her I'm dead." Obito's voice was trembling, desperate, pleading.

"We don't have time for this!" Kakashi started towards the door again.

"If you were ever my friend, you have to-"

Impatient, overwhelmed, and ready to get the hell out of this room and Obito's emotional instability, Kakashi whirled on his heel and barked,

"I don't have to do a _damn_ thing, Obito!"

He realized how venomous his voice sounded as soon as he said it, but he was beyond exhausted by tip-toeing around all the time. He took a deep breath.

"I won't tell her a thing about you. Being in Konoha is going to be enough shock for her. Even seeing me is… I'm sure it's not something she ever expected to happen again."

Obito still felt like his body was covered in ants. The fear and panic was setting in.

"Kakashi, I –"

"I'm going to see her."

And with that Kakashi darted from the room.

* * *

He balked outside the door. With his exposed fingers gripping the cold door handle, he noticed them shaking. Even with his gloves on, he knew that his knuckles were turning white. He felt a quivering in his chest and a lump in his throat that he just couldn't swallow.

He knew that he needed to be there for her. He knew he needed to console her and be the one thing that helped her make sense of her wildly turbulent and unlikely world… but all that was running through his mind was how he could ever— _ever_ — convey the enormity of his sorrow and regret for the life he had taken from her.

He shook his head and slapped the side of his concealed face. With a deep breath, he pushed the door open.

* * *

The white, metal-paneled door barely made a sound as he swung it open.

Sakura was the first person he saw. She was kneeling in front of a bed, facing towards him, dressed in a green robe with her short hair pinned back. She was obviously assessing Rin, speaking very gently to her, and using calming words and language. Kakashi floated into the room on ghost feet, but the sound of Sakura's voice quieted the roaring in his head and his heart.

There was a slight figure sitting in front of her, holding Sakura's hand. Her long, layered hair was askew from weeks in bed and mostly swept over her right shoulder. She had a pearl-white robe wrapped around her, the shoulder seams of the sleeves riding low on her fragile arms. He noticed the deep purple of her short fingernails half-dug into the bunched fabric of her right sleeve.

Sakura shifted her eyes to Kakashi, which made the girl tick her head slightly to the right, the small curve of her cheek, nose, and eyelashes came into view.

Kakashi froze, mid-stride.

"Your friend is here, Miss Nohara." Sakura said calmly, placing her other hand atop the small one she already held.

The girl turned her head.

There was no way.

Even with months of studying her sleeping face, there was _absolutely no way_ Kakashi could have been prepared for the gut-punch her eyes elicited within him.

Wide, bright, uncertain eyes, rimmed by thick, dark lashes.

Purple markings contrasting the milk-porcelain of faultless skin.

Her shoulders narrowing together beneath the silky robe hanging off her small frame.

Her manicured, delicate brows knit themselves together in slight confusion for one solitary second. Then, the dawning of recognition crashed into her brown doe eyes so completely lightning would have been less subtle. Her trembling hands flew to her face, clasping over her mouth.

"Ka…Ka _shi_!" Her voice flew up at the end of his name, the reservoir of her tears making a glassy sea of her eyes.

He wanted to say anything. Seeing her like this, with eyes wide open, saying his name… It was so uncanny. He was pulled back into the very last time he saw her, when they were young and he had so much foolish pride.

He felt as if he were stabbed through the chest. All he could utter was,

"It's… Is it… Is it _you_ , Rin?"

Very shakily she stood, steadying herself with one hand on the bed while the other gathered the loose folds of her robe modestly to herself. She did all this without moving her head at all, without ripping her eyes from Kakashi. Sakura placed a hand on Rin's back.

"Don't try to move so much, miss, you've been immobile for so long you'll be unsteady."

Not listening to a word she said, Rin hurled herself towards Kakashi, who was still frozen, mid-step, in the middle of her hospital room.

" _Oh, Kakashi!"_ She aspirated, limping across the room as fast as she could, scrambling towards him in a panic. Before he knew what happened she had thrown her grasping arms around his waist and buried her face in his chest.

"I thought I would never see you again!" She cried, her shoulders heaving, her hands twisting his flak jacket into her fists.

Having Rin holding onto him in such a way was an extremely vulnerable and unguarded feeling for Kakashi, and he couldn't remember the last time he had felt as naked as he did this moment. And maybe it was because of the mountains of his regret, the hundreds of hours' worth of secrets he had shared with Rin at her grave, or the gob smacking reality that the only person he had ever truly sworn to protect was buried, not in the ground – but in his chest – that finally allowed Kakashi to let his well-guarded emotions loose, too.

He wrapped his arms fully, completely, and all-encompassingly around her and held her as tightly to him as he dare. His brows knotted in emotion, and his one exposed eye began watering beyond his ability to control.

"Me too, Rin." His voice was a higher, more exposed pitch than Sakura had ever heard uttered from her sensei, and she felt a pang of deep emotion well up within her as the two of them experienced something she couldn't hope to understand.

"I tried so long, so hard, to get back here, to you and sensei. I tried every day, Kakashi, please know that! I tried every single day but I couldn't get away. I was trapped and I was scared and I never stopped trying to get home!" Rin's tear-soaked words came tumbling out at breakneck speed. Kakashi didn't break his hold on her, but cradled her head, her unkempt hair weaving in and out of his open, grasping fingers. Her words broke his already breaking heart.

"Rin, I am so sorry. I am _so sorry_."

"They had me trapped for so long, and every day I tried to get back to Konoha. I kept thinking of you being so alone without Obito and without me and I couldn't think of one single way to let you know I was alive and I was trying my hardest to get home. They put me in a barrier, but even then I didn't stop and I tried to get out and they finally put me under a genjutsu to control me and every night I dreamed of you and Obito and it was so real that it was like I never left either of you. Every night, I dreamed of both of you, and every day I woke up being slapped with the reality of not living in that world with both of you and I began not knowing dreams from reality and I was so confused I didn't know what to do but whether in dreams or in waking I was always trying to get away. I never stopped trying to get home!"

Rin's furious words were striking Kakashi in the heart. Every single one.

"I never stopped, Kakashi. Every night I was trying to protect both you and Obito."

Rin finally pulled back from where she had sobbed into him, but he didn't let up his grip for one second. His eyes were winced shut.

"I'm so sorry, Rin. I'm so, so sorry." His words a constant loop of the ones that he had replayed at her grave a thousand times, his breathing ragged, his voice strained.

"Kakashi…" She whispered his name, her voice fevered, quaking. She lifted her hand to his forehead protector and lifted it, revealing his scarred eye, sealed shut. "Look at me, Kakashi." Her whisper barely voiced.

With the opening of his eyes, he was assaulted by everything that was so inexplicably Rin. She had grown, she was much older than the girl she used to be. He felt the sensation that a day had not passed since he had seen her, and that he'd never seen her before in his life. He experienced the feeling of believing he knew her more intimately than anyone, yet didn't know her at all. It was a feeling that no person ever truly gets to feel once in their lives… Yet he had felt it poignantly, _twice_.

His eyes welled up in unhidden emotion. He felt like they were strangling every part of him forever.

"Please, _please_ … forgive me, Rin. I can never say sorry enough. I am _so sorry._ "

She laid her hand against the side of his face, touching him in unbridled disbelief. She had a million questions swimming in her eyes, so many that it was impossible for Kakashi to pick even one she might voice.

Tears began running down her cheeks as she stroked her hand back and forth on the side of his face. She was looking deeply into his sharingan eye, and he perceived the enormous amount of emotion that staring into that eye caused her.

"Kakashi, no. I'm the one… I'm the one who needs forgiveness. Please forgive me!"

He was so startled by her words that he didn't know how to react.

"Forgive you? For what!"

"Your eyes are heavy, Kakashi. Your eyes are so heavy. You've taken the weight of Obito on yourself, but you've also taken me on, as well… Haven't you?"

He had been churning in feelings before, but her simple observation cut to the core of his heart. His whole life he had carried them, their corpses weighing on his every thought, choice, and motive. With the exception of Gai, no one had ever seen what Rin could see in a moment; and even Gai had never voiced what she had, so quickly.

Rin could always see.

He tightened his grip around her, trying to hide his face from her by proximity. But even in her tumult of emotion, she was herself. Kakashi felt like he was losing a sense of the man he had tried so hard to be with every word and touch from Rin.

Sakura walked quietly past them, but placed her hand gently on Kakashi's back.

"Sensei, take all the time you need. I'll be in the waiting room when you two are finished."

Kakashi was so thankful that Sakura mercifully left the two of them and all the undignified aspects of himself that he'd rather his former student not see. Rin took his hands and led him to a sofa by the window. They sat, holding hands, touching each other over and over, unable to believe the other one was living, breathing, in front of them.

After some time, with all of the garbled, uncertain words and expressions that passed between them, Rin finally brought herself to ask the first real substantive question since the two of them had reunited.

"Kakashi… Why do you look so…"

She searched for the word as she held his hand tightly, her eyes searching through him, hoping he would volunteer the word she was looking for. He had no clue what she was asking.

"…So?" He asked, laying his free hand on top of hers.

"Old?" She tested the word, but soon shook her head. "Not old, really… Manly? Wise? You look like you've aged more than I would have ever imagined."

He chuckled, the first bit of levity he had felt since their reunion.

"All these years, Rin… and the first thing you can tell me is that I'm an old man now?" He teased gently, his eyes turning up in a kind smile.

"No! Trust me, it's not a bad look at all. If anything you look more… dashing than I ever would have thought." She confessed honestly, squeezing his hand. "But you… You look like you're thirty years old."

"Thirty-one, actually." He laughed softly.

She looked inquisitively into him, her expression unchanging.

"…You're thirty-one." She said, a statement.

He felt a tremor of ice run down his spine.

"What year… is this?" She asked, fear brimming in her tone.

Kakashi realized he had given away more than he should have. He held her hands tightly in his and looked seriously at her.

"Rin, listen to me. I'm with you now, and I won't let anything hurt you. But I think there are many things you need to know. I will tell you all of them. Are you ready to talk about them now, or should we wait until another time?" He opened his hands, unclasping her grip.

Confusion was eclipsed by bravery as she grabbed his hands again. She nodded and said,

"Please… tell me everything."

* * *

"Obito Uchiha."

The strong voice stated his name in authority, more loudly than was needed to be said.

"The ANBU is here to escort you to the holding cell in Konoha's penitentiary."

Still and quiet, the man sat upright in bed acknowledging no one. The wind whipped wildly outside his window, the black clouds rolling fiercely while thunder rumbled ominously in the distance.

To the ANBU, he looked calm and compliant. But little did they know that the man and the storm had far more in common than they could have guessed.

* * *

Rin's hands flew to her face once more. The information that Kakashi kindly and patiently delivered to her felt like an assault, no matter how he tried to soften the blows.

"So, what you're saying… I… maybe I didn't understand it correctly." She said, her hands roaming her face, her eyes in massive disbelief.

Kakashi leaned forward and placed his hands on her arms gently, willing her to look at his calm countenance.

"Tell me what you understand."

She swallowed, the dry lump stinging her cotton throat. She tried her best to stop her voice from wavering,

"What… What I think you said is that I was…"

She stopped abruptly, the word scaring her. Kakashi touched the side of her face reassuringly.

"Take your time, Rin."

Tears bit her eyes as her mind tried to accept the implications.

"I was… dead… for _ten years_?"

Kakashi slowly nodded his head.

"Based upon what we know, that is, more or less, true."

She stared at him, her mind working manically within her.

"I… I never knew, just what happened. I remember…"

She pulled her consciousness back to herself and stared deeply at him, trying, even in her own shock, to be gentle with her words.

"I remember you and me… in the mist. I remember what they did to me."

Despite his resolve to be the strong and calming figure, a sense of pain flashed across his face. Rin reached out and laced her fingers in his. In this unchartered, unimaginable situation, it seemed the only thing that kept the two old teammates speaking, the only assurance they had in this game of emotional roulette, was the physical ability to touch one another… hands and fingers, arms and faces of the very other they never in their wildest dreams believed they'd ever touch again.

"Kakashi, can we… are you okay if we talk about it?" She asked. In that moment, he realized that for the last seven years, she had been living with her own memory of that night and all that had led up to it. His chest felt drenched in sorrow, heart beating far too fast, yet he nodded.

"We can try."

She pursed her lips in pain as she recalled it herself.

"When they put that power inside of me, I wasn't awake to know what they did. But when I became aware of that dark presence inside of me… I couldn't do anything to stop it. I knew, in a place beyond myself, that the power within me was enough to destroy you, and sensei, and Lord Hokage, and all of Konoha. I knew I would be the death of… of you."

She choked before beginning again,

"I jumped for two reasons."

Rin turned her face away as it contorted in pain.

Reassuringly, Kakashi squeezed her hand. "Tell me another time. I don't think I can take it now, either."

She wiped her eyes with the blade of her hand.

"I had so much I wanted to tell you, but once I… jumped, I couldn't get any words out, except for your name."

Kakashi did turn away. He couldn't take what she was telling him. He had lived so long caged alone with the memories he had tried to wash away, but to hear the exact sequence of events from her point of view was overwhelming. It verified that this secret pain he lived with every day of his life actually did happen, and it happened as he remembered it. He felt like his heart was going to crumble.

"Rin, I'm sorry. I'm actually not ready to talk about that night yet." He gristled out of his closing throat. She rubbed his forearm with her hand, then she leaned in and laid her face against his shoulder. Slowly, he cradled her head with his hand, wrapping her protectively to himself with his free arm.

For a long moment, she said nothing. She simply inhaled his scent into her memory, still unbelieving.

"I didn't know if I had died. I do remember being in a state of consciousness, and I felt at peace. I don't remember much, but there was no pain, no memory of what came before or what would come after, and no desire to know. I could have been there for a moment, or a lifetime. Somehow, it existed outside of time. I didn't question it. I just was. And then I was back."

Kakashi looked at her inquisitively.

"Where?"

"I was in a house. There was an old man there, and there was a young man and woman and a… creature. It's hard to describe him."

"Who were they?"

"Honestly, I never knew, though I would come to see them all often, especially the first year or two. The old man always concealed his face. The creature was half black, half white, and looked somewhat like a man. The young woman was very beautiful and quiet, but also kind to me when we were alone. The young man had bright orange hair, piercings all over, and the strangest eyes I've ever seen – deep purple, like ripples in water."

Kakashi took a deep breath. He tightened his grip around Rin.

"I know them. That man was likely the person who brought you back to life."

Rin pulled back to look at Kakashi. "Tell me about him."

"He was known as Pain, though the person you saw was actually more or less an avatar of a man named Nagato. He was the functional leader of a terrorist group of missing nin known as Akatsuki. His doujutsu had the ability to bring the dead back to life. I was one of them, actually."

Rin's eyes widened dramatically. "You, Kakashi!?"

Kakashi nodded. "That man destroyed most of Konoha… and killed me in the process."

He was surprised to see the amount of pain and shock on Rin's face.

"The man that brought me back to life, Pain, or Nagato… He did that?!" She asked in disbelief.

Kakashi nodded slowly.

"Are you sure it was him?!" She was truly distressed.

"Yes."

She covered her mouth with her hands once more, her eyes tearing up and spilling over.

"I… I can't believe it."

"I know, it's a lot to take in." Kakashi consoled her.

"I can't believe he would do that."

Kakashi blinked at her. "What do you mean?"

Rin's eyes were glassed over, seeing through years Kakashi knew nothing about.

"It's true, I knew he was involved in something bad. But the reason I am who I am… It's because of that man."

Kakashi was unnerved by what she said, as he had only experienced the very worst of Pain. Had Rin been influenced by Akatsuki?

"Please, explain what you mean by that." He tried to sound as neutral as possible, though his mind swirled with questions.

"I mean… It's a long story, Kakashi, and not a very straightforward one at that."

"Just try to hit the main points, later we can talk about the details." He said, patting her hand reassuringly.

"There are so many things I'm not sure of, but I will tell you what I remembered, and what I knew. As I said, I wasn't sure what happened to me after you… After the mist. I remember seeing your face, and then I was in a very peaceful place. I felt like I remembered that time well when I was first in the house, but now that I think back, I can remember very little. In fact, the harder I try to remember, the more I forget."

"I know the feeling… It happened to me, too." Kakashi said. "I don't remember everything, but I remember the important things."

Rin looked at him earnestly.

"That place… was death, then?"

"Oi." Kakashi affirmed softly, his own eyes glassing over in the first and only closure he had ever received.

"When I came to in the house, I wasn't sure what happened. I know that the Mist ninja did something to me, but I have no idea what it was. It was like they trapped an energy inside of me that was cataclysmic. I was terrified down to the marrow in my bones before I… died. When I woke up, I only felt a certain aspect of that energy remaining. I've never been able to figure it out, and I've never received any answers, I only have feelings to describe it. I wish I knew."

"I can tell you."

Rin looked wide-eyed at him again. "What happened to me?" She whispered.

"Do you remember long ago at the academy, when we learned about those tailed demons that fell upon villages like natural disasters?"

"…Yes."

"Nine of them exist, and different ninja villages have harnessed their powers by sealing them into capable ninja. Rin, you were kidnapped for the express purpose of sealing the three-tailed beast inside of you."

For a long moment, she didn't speak. Finally, she whimpered,

"…Is it still?"

"When I…" He caught himself. "When you… died… The beast within you was killed, too. They are immortal, so he reincarnated at a later place and time."

Rin nodded. "I didn't know what they did to me. I just knew the power inside me was unthinkable. I honestly thought that the power saved me. That's why I never knew I was dead. I thought it shielded me, and perhaps I was in a coma for a very long time. When I saw the man you call Pain, all he told me was that he healed me. None of them ever mentioned death."

She withdrew into her thoughts before asking again, "If the beast is gone, why did part of his power remain in me?"

"What are you talking about?" Kakashi asked.

"Back then, I had to… I had to jump in front of you, Kakashi. I felt like my every movement was a battle with a force much stronger than me, willing me to do what it wanted me to. I think the beast wanted to destroy Konoha, and I couldn't suppress it. I couldn't turn and run the other way. It was as if a magnet drew me to do something I didn't want to do. The only way I could stop myself was…"

Kakashi held up his hand.

"What you felt before and after the beast's death actually wasn't the beast. That feeling of being forced into doing what you don't want to do isn't actually a feature of those who become the demon's host, or jinchuriki. That was a separate power at play within you that was performed upon you while you were unconscious."

"What kind of power?"

"The old man who was with you was known as Tetsuo. He fashioned a cursed heart tag that forced your will under the submission of a man named Madara Uchiha. This was totally separate from you becoming a jinchuriki."

Rin gasped softly. "A man from Obito's clan?"

Kakashi nodded.

"I… I don't understand. Why did he do that to me? Was he trying to… protect me somehow?"

"Protect you?" he asked in confusion.

"Anyone related to Obito would want to help me, right? He risked his life to save us. Was that Madara trying to help me?"

Her naïveté tugged on Kakashi's heart so rawly that all he could do was pull her into his chest again, hand in her hair. He rested his chin atop her and allowed his eyes to show the emotion he was trying to hide from her. After a long moment, he spoke.

"Unfortunately, no. He wasn't trying to protect you. He was trying to control you."

"Me?" Rin said softly, her voice mixed with confusion. "Why would he want to control me?"

"Honestly, Rin, I don't know that much. But I want you to know that he is gone now. He can't control you anymore."

"I don't feel that power inside me now." She stated, bringing her hands to her heart. "For the first time since I was a girl, I don't feel that power inside of me now. Do you know why?"

His chin resting in her hair, he wondered how much he should reveal. Finally, he said,

"When you died, the beast was killed, but the curse tag that was placed on your heart wasn't shattered. Not long ago, Tetsuo, the maker of the tag, was killed, and the seal was destroyed."

Kakashi hoped that was enough to satisfy her questions for now, because he honestly wasn't sure what more he could tell her without incriminating Obito. He suddenly felt a selfish pang within him to tell her absolutely everything, but he knew that would be the worst betrayal he could ever make against Obito, and Rin's current state was definitely not the time or place to think of dropping any further bombshells on her. Still, the fact that he cradled in his arms the one person who held his heart in his most broken days, the girl who always placed him before herself in every situation, was enticing him to spill a lifetime's worth of secrets in the loving space decorated by a mutilating scar his brashness and pride had inflicted upon her.


	9. Side of Marble Side of Wounds

**A Cord of Three Strands**

Chapter IX

 _Side of Marble / Side of Wounds_

With his one hand cuffed to a chain that wrapped once around his waist, Obito was led by a convoy of armed ANBU from his room. Unsteady, he was barely able to walk, particularly with the short chain that leashed his ankles to one another. He was dressed in a simple black cloak with a red obi, long sleeve draping over his limbless right side. The ANBU lifted his hood over his dark head. He had barely even noticed the return of his black hair, as he avoided looking in the mirror as much as he could. Kakashi once told him that in the weeks of his incapacitation his white hair began growing out, turning darker once more.

Over his eye, a seal was placed in order to keep him from vanishing or attacking. As feeble as he felt, the precautions seemed like overkill. But in his heart he knew there was enough leeway for him to at least perform a jutsu, which is exactly what he had planned to do.

After Kakashi ran out to meet Rin, he was left alone, eaten by increasing anxiety and dread. The thought of seeing her made his heart hurt in a way he had no idea could still exist. To know that she was awake, alive, and conscious under the same roof as he… It made him wish for impossible things; things that could never be. The realization that she was so close, yet still so far, tore him afresh. Old scars that seemed as settled and sure as mountains rattled and split, revealing themselves as secret fault lines all along. He couldn't stand the thought of her ever knowing the truth about him. He couldn't stand seeing her. If she came to hate him, it would be far too much to bear… But if she cared for him still, it would be even worse.

In the violent eddies of his mind, he understood that the only way for him was out. Before she was well enough to leave the hospital, while Kakashi was distracted with her care, he would make his move. Once he was safely away from the hospital, from the wounded and defenseless, from Kakashi and from her, he would rally his ebbing strength to cast one final jutsu. As per Kakashi's descriptions, he knew that he would bring his own execution upon his head.

When he was dead, Kakashi would be free to pursue the dream of Hokage. With him gone, he would never have to face the utter shame of having Rin know fully of his monstrous deeds. And over his dead body, the garden of Rin and Kakashi's love could bloom uninhibitedly. He knew they both deserved the salve that could be found only in each other's arms.

And he also knew that he would be better off dead than having to suffer the hell of watching it happen.

The storm was upon Konoha now. The sky was swirling black and the wind had turned into a full-force gale. The rain began pounding the window where Kakashi and Rin still held one another. Neither had ventured to understand why the holding was so important, nor had either tried in their own heart to sort out why. The only thing that was known tangibly to both of them was that letting go created a cavernous void, an aching pit that each became instantly fanatical to fill with one touch more.

"Kakashi, I have a feeling that you're keeping something from me."

He tried not to betray himself with any immediate excuses.

"Why?"

"I'm not sure. I haven't seen you in… Well, for you, it's been a lot longer, hasn't it? Maybe I need to reacquaint myself with who you are now before I make assumptions."

Kakashi only kept holding her, unsure of what to say.

"Will you promise to always tell me the truth, Kakashi?" She asked, her voice solemn with meaning.

A long moment passed, the rain crashing in heavy sheets.

"I promise to tell you what I can." His answer was sincere, yet guarded.

She pulled away from him to look in his eyes. She saw the shadows of things he could not say, and she wondered at them.

"Tell me what you can't, when the time comes." She whispered, breathless.

Kakashi's heart was awash in a feeling he could not name, and certainly not one he could ever remember feeling before. His heart sped up as the shadows of the storm framed her eyes with…

A flash of lightning and all the power in the hospital was gone.

"What the hell did you do?!" The ANBU captain screamed, throwing Obito up against the wall in the now-darkened hallway.

"Nothing." Was all Obito could muster. He had no idea why the captain suddenly attacked him, but he also knew that the ANBU needed no provocation to act aggressively towards him.

"Captain, it's just the storm. He can't use any jutsu in his current condition." He heard a muffled whisper behind him in the direction of his aggressor.

Harnessing a smarm he wished he didn't have to embody, Obito grimaced before smirking.

"The credentials for ANBU must be at an all-time low if your captain is scared of a little rain."

Almost immediately, the darkness exploded in stars as the ANBU captain connected his elbow against Obito's head, causing him to crash violently, face-first, into the wall.

"If the Hokage knows what's truly good for this village, she'll let us chain you to a wall in the prison and watch as you rot from the inside out." The captain snarled, kicking Obito's foot out from under him. The loss of balance caused him to hit the floor hard.

Groaning, he laid prone for a few seconds before attempting to pick his body up. It didn't help that he was severely infirm. He wondered how easily he might be stricken unconscious.

"Let's go, captain. The warden is expecting us soon."

Obito felt his restraints being pulled, and he struggled to his knees.

Even with the beating he had taken in his weakened state, his plan to exploit the anger of the ANBU had worked. Though the hospital was in total darkness, the blows he had continually taken to the face had jostled his seal loose. Through a tiny sliver near the outside corner of his eye, he could see the shadows on the wall as lightning flashed outside.

As the seal loosened slightly with every step, he could identify that they would soon be entering the lobby.

" _Once we reach the hospital doors, I only need a little distance more."_

Soon after the electricity blew out, a pre-recorded alert was released across the hospital, indicating that all patients should report to the first floor for emergency shelter. Kakashi held Rin's hand as they weaved through the halls of the hospital. Discovering that the elevators were out of service, they took the stairwell. Carefully, he made sure that she, on her wobbly legs, wouldn't lose her footing and stumble.

"We're almost there, Rin." Kakashi reassured her.

Far more tired than she imagined a trip down a few flights of stairs could make her, she wrapped her arm around Kakashi's waist as he draped his around her. Together, they pushed the double doors opening up into the far right of the hospital lobby.

Before they could even gather their bearings, a flurry of shouting and frantic movement scurried rampantly down the hallways.

"Everyone, get back!"

"Against the wall!"

Confused, Rin looked at Kakashi, "What's happening?"

Kakashi squinted in the dim lobby, the storm darkening the room dramatically.

"I don't know."

A nurse appeared before him, tugging him towards the left-side entrance on the far opposite side of the room. "Oh, Commander Hatake, please assist us. It seems that some trouble was had in the hallway so reinforcements have been called in as a precaution."

"Reinforcements for –"

The double doors at the end of the hallway were kicked wide open as half a dozen fully-suited ANBU appeared.

Kakashi's blood turned to ice.

"Reinforcements for the prisoner." The nurse said as she waved her hand in the direction of the opening doors. "Please help, apparently there was violence on the way down."

Before Kakashi could even react to what the nurse told him, the clinking chains of the prisoner heralded his entry into the room. He shuffled beneath his black cloak, blood hitting the floor from his downcast face. His armless right sleeve fluttered as he moved like a specter of death across the stark white floors of the sterile hospital.

Kakashi started to call out to halt the prisoner, insisting upon knowing what happened to elicit the dripping blood, but he balked at the last second as he remembered Rin clinging to his side. Obito would never forgive him if he called out now.

"Rin, get behind me." He threw his arm protectively out in front of her, trying his best to shield her and to keep her from the truth he wasn't sure any of them could survive.

As the robed man hobbled in obvious pain towards the door, the ANBU soldiers stationed ahead of him opened the hospital doors to lead him out into the rain.

From this point, everything happened very fast.

The commanding wind burst through the small foyer of the hospital, causing one of the soldiers to lose his grip on the handle. The door flung fiercely against the wall, allowing the full-force of the gale to rip through the room, directly in the face of the prisoner. The overhanging hood flew back completely, setting his short, coal hair aflame in movement. The wind caught the corner of the drooping seal, and in one gust, it was gone completely, swept out the open door.

From where Kakashi stood, he could see the side of Obito's face unrestrictedly. Spiraling scars, black eye grimacing in the sting of the rain. With his one arm lifted to brace against the storm, he pushed forward with resolve towards the howling of the open door. Above the din of the tempest, the ANBU captain began to shout,

"He lost the seal! Neutralize the sharingan!"

Immediately, every ANBU was on the struggling man. Corkscrewing one arm behind him, locking his head back and straight up towards the ceiling, and creating a jutsu barrier around him, every soldier was on their highest alert.

"If you make one wrong move, I'll end it all right here!" The captain shouted.

In one jerking motion, Obito was drug through the door into the storm as the ANBU began to expedite the delivery of their notorious captive. In perfect symmetry, the doors slammed shut behind them at the exact second the hospital generator kicked in, causing light to spill across the tense, silent lobby.

Beneath his mask, Kakashi's mouth hung open. Every hair on his body stood on end, and for as long as he possibly could, he tried to will himself not to look at Rin. He silently prayed that she didn't see anything, or what she saw and heard, she didn't understand.

Slowly, _slowly_ , he turned around to look behind him.

The expression on her face was one he had only seen once before in his entire life, and that was the night he had put his hand through her heart.

"Rin, listen to m-"

Before he knew a thing, she had shoved past him, lost her shoes, and, in a flash of lightning, was dashing barefoot through the storm, robe flying in the wind.

" _It can't be..."_

She threw open the hospital doors and bolted out into the howling wind and battering rain. This day had destroyed every foundation upon which she had found herself perched these past seven years, but nothing that she had learned – including the fact that she had been dead for ten long years – could come remotely close to rocking her as devastatingly as the unthinkable, impossible reason she was tearing through this storm right now.

" _There's no way…"_

It was totally impossible – even in a day bursting with impossibilities come to life – but something within her compelled her, magnetized her, far beyond her ability to reason, control, or comprehend. In the way that waves are a slave to the shore, Rin's soul pulled her body in heightened pursuit of this man that could not possibly, truthfully be real.

" _It just couldn't_! _"_ Her mind roared in her ears to the point of deafness. She didn't even hear the rain.

Narrowing her eyes against the sting of the cold, the silhouettes of the ANBU and their prisoner began to slowly emerge in the fog.

" _This is far enough."_ Obito thought to himself as he assessed his surroundings through his rapidly swelling eye. _"I'm far enough from the hospital."_

His shambling steps abruptly stopped. He was mostly certain that in the company of this rash and violent ANBU captain, his demise was certain. Even if he wasn't pummeled to death here and now, the casting of a jutsu would be enough to dissuade any confidence for his rehabilitation. He would sign his death warrant with his next move.

With a final sigh, he took one final inventory of the world around him. Strangely, he felt a tug of tragic sorrow, not at the hellishness of the world, but at the glimpses of beauty he had seen along this long, dark death march he had called his life.

The black sky was purging itself in icy sheets and chill-thick fog. He caught a glimpse of the mountains that surrounded the village and wondered silently at the beauty of the staggering cliffs and craggy outcroppings. A small hut not far from where he stood was puffing dense smoke from the chimney. Inside, a mother was making dinner for her family and the orange glow of the fire lit the misty windows in a warmth that he had seldom known in this cruel and terrible life. It seemed such a poetic, suitable way for him to go: soaked to the bone in icy rain, confined by forces beyond his control, always and forever on the lonesome outside, looking sadly in.

He would die not as a hero, but as a stomach-sickening evil. The one consolation he had was that his perishing would enable Kakashi to become Hokage. His death would spare Rin the heartbreak of knowing that the worst horrors of the world were dedicated in her name. Being cut down by the village guardians would help him protect Konoha from the stupidity of believing in human trash like himself who would inevitably take advantage of their goodness and use it as a weapon against them.

But for the flash of a moment, he felt a curious sorrow to leave this place. Whatever was on the other side would prove fitting for his damnable soul. But for a fleeting second, he knew the devastating beauty that his soul had touched in this life would be the closest to heaven he ever got. 

He remembered his grandmother's voice, singing him to sleep, and the way her trembling fingers brushed his hair across his forehead. He remembered the field at the edge of the village and how it would explode in wildflowers at the start of every spring. He remembered a secret nook he discovered in a mountain pass as a young boy, and how the southern wind would blow through like a beautiful cyclone, creating songs that only he ever got to hear.

He remembered that one summer night when he and Rin lie awake hours after Kakashi and Minato-sensei fell asleep. They had made camp in a forest clearing, and he pointed to every constellation and told her the story about every hero in the sky. He remembered how she had looked at him with such admiration and regard. He remembered what she had whispered in his ear that very night.

The world had foretastes of beauty, and he had tried to protect that beauty the only way he knew how. But like every other thing he had ever attempted, he was destined to fail.

"Hey, Uchiha, you stop when we say you stop." Said the guard who was leading him by his chains. He jerked him like an inobedient dog.

"Did you hear what we said?" Another chimed in, shivering in the rain, "We've got a schedule to keep."

Obito reached up and laid his hood down. With one deep sigh, he looked up, beginning to open his eye. The fire-red eye stirred beneath the fog, whirring in the wintry rain. He was shifting his sight to meet the gaze of his captors, readying his genjutsu…

"Kamu-"

"Obito?"

In the self-same breath, his sharingan died completely. Rigor mortis shot through every limb, ticked up every vertebra, commandeered every inch of space within him.

" _Obito?"  
_

The tiny voice was more formidable than Madara, more terrifying than the ten-tails.

Every thought, every fact, every memory, every understanding of the world and his place in it screamed in his head. Every agony, every suffering, every ripping, every destruction that was in store for him flashed before his eye. Every reason why he should kamui himself into oblivion played out in detail, every belief that he could deny his identity straight into truth materialized before him, every hope that he could die and turn to dust conveyed itself in the sincerest and deepest appreciation.

And despite all of it,

he turned to the sound of her voice.

She stood, barefoot, trembling. Not in exertion, not in chill, but in something far more visceral than either could ever be. Her wildly unkempt hair, side swept over her right shoulder, long, drenched. Her oversized robe, drooping off her shoulders, transparent as the silk clung to her tiny, quaking body.

Her eyes pierced him through. They met his, unseeing, uncomprehending. Waiting.

Waiting for him to speak.

There were no words. There could never be words again. All those years in silence, all those thousands of miles, just for a hope to draw those eyes upon his again in an artificial world.

But this wasn't artificial.

 _This_ was real. _She_ was real.

There were no words. His face said it all.

And as soon as his face contorted into the anguish his heart was screaming,

 _she knew._

She knew beyond genjutsu, beyond dreams, beyond regret, beyond reality.

Even as he doubled over, even as his misshapen face warped itself further into wide-eyed horror, even as he cursed himself to absolute ruin.

She opened her mouth, thunder crashed, lightning struck the husk within him that used to be a heart.

With all her might, she threw herself, wailing, into his chest.

"OBITO **!"**

The tears ran faster than the rain could fall, her vocal chords scraped out his jagged name, made of concrete, tattering the soft lining of her throat.

She threw her grasping arms around him, clawing at him like a rabid animal.

Her face moved like a living thing over his chest, as if the feeling of him were enough to convince her that he was real, but she doubted more with every touch.

She wailed.

She couldn't stop screaming.

She couldn't stop grasping.

She couldn't stop moving.

She couldn't stop

gasping,

gasping,

gasping his name.

"OBITO! OBITO! OBITO!"

The ANBU were stunned and shocked in silence, unsure of who this woman was and more so, why she was clinging to an abomination like their prisoner. But none of them were more astonished than Obito himself. His body was completely frozen.

But everything within him was shaking in a thunderous howl.

Finally, her clawing, grasping hands found each other around him and she clasped them together, molding her body to his with such force it knocked the breath from him. Her face finally stilled it's roaming and she laid her cheek against his chest. His heart was beating so fast, he felt it was on the verge of exploding, and Rin leaned her ear into his pulsing.

"Obito…"

She gasped, her breath swirling around her in chilled fog.

"Obito…"

His name was oxygen. His name was a suspension of the impossible. His name was a flaming torch she rhythmically swung to keep the wolves of reality at bay. His name lodged in the hollow of her bones, filling them with a sickening sort of strength that kept her tightening her death hold on the one she never dared hope she'd ever see outside of genjutsu again.

"Obito…"

Her body was a cage for a spirit that needed closer to him, closer to him, closer to him. Even as she enfolded her body around him with all her might, it still felt too far away. It still felt too polite for the boy that had died so she could live. The furious drumming of his heart was a delicious, extravagant reminder that the man she now held in her arms was actually living.

"Obito…"

Her crazed voice began to simmer in breathlessness, in the recognition that her adrenaline was subsiding. Suddenly, it occurred to her that she might be mad. Was she clinging to a man of his likeness? How could her Obito _possibly_ be alive? Why wasn't he saying anything?

Shaking tremendously, she pulled her face back from his chest, afraid to look at him.

Obito stood stock still, rendered entirely speechless.

Hers was the first body to _ever_ hold his like this. She was the first person to touch him so unabashedly since… Since she used to.

Sobbing, her tears indistinguishable from the rain, she kept her head towards the ground and cried, too afraid to look, too afraid to wake up from this dream she had dreamed so many nights in the fever of genjutsu.

"Miss, I don't know who you are but this man is extremely dangerous and we can't let you near him." The ANBU captain approached the young woman whose arms were still entwined around the waist of the warlord.

" _Don't touch her."_ a voice ordered directly in the captain's ear. From the fog, Kakashi emerged. "Leave them be. That's an order from the Third Division Commander of the Allied Shinobi Forces, which by the mandate given from the unification council can only be overridden by a Kage of the five villages."

The rain pounded as the ANBU captain stood his ground. "We have to get this man to his holding –"

"I'll see that handwritten by Tsunade-sama herself first. Or, you can give the prisoner and the young woman a moment. He will willingly go with you after."

Angered, but mostly more perturbed and cold, the ANBU captain made a hand motion to his squad, causing them to fall back. They took several steps away, taking momentary refuge beneath the shelter of trees and awnings.

Obito's finely-tuned perceptive abilities worked on auto-pilot, and he was aware that Kakashi had intervened quietly on their behalf. Rin was so lost in her emotion that the sun could have fallen from the sky and she'd never have noticed. Obito was more frightened of her than he had ever been of anything in his life and he didn't know whether to thank or kill Kakashi for his hand in removing everyone else from this moment.

Though he easily discerned Kakashi and the ANBU squadron's proximity, the thick fog rolling around them made him feel like they were the only two people on earth.

He was scared, from the bottom of his heart.

Rin attempted to control her breathing. He could tell she was working up her nerve. She had been staring at his stomach, unwilling to relinquish her vice-grip around him. The chain that was leading him had been dropped, and he was more than able to move his left arm. Regardless, it remained frozen above the diminutive woman in an awkward angle more befitting a scarecrow than a man.

Deep breath in, ragged breath out.

She pulled her face slowly away. Every inch or two, she would completely stop and take a deep breath again. Obito wasn't sure he had breathed once since she threw herself into him.

Finally, she unhooked her fingers from around him and slowly, tremblingly, she gave her body room from his. She still couldn't look any higher than his stomach. She reached out, wordlessly, and placed her small hand on his abdomen.

It was then that his trembling began.

She ran her hand, very slowly, up his body. Watching her hand touching him was the only thing that gave her courage to move her eyes at all.

She moved from his stomach to his side, feeling the raw muscle and sinew that carved out his chiseled body, still so defined even underneath the layers of his robe.

 _Is he made of stone?_

Even her thoughts seemed to come from another body. She was the most captive audience that Obito ever had as her eyes swallowed every detail of the man beneath her fingers.

Her open palm led across the swollen pectoral of his left side. It peaked at the top of his rugged shoulder and she could feel all the bones, married to muscle, woven together in a masculine tapestry beneath the soaking black fabric. Her small hand arced steeply across his protruding bicep, fingers ran like water over his compact forearm. This man's willowy body was even more rugged than Kakashi, as if every soft and tender thing had been replaced by severe edges. He was skin stretched over granite.

Her fingers slid down to the edge of his robe at the wrist. His hand was hidden beneath a heavy black glove. Her fingers made their way down his gloved hand, and he found himself wordlessly, meekly submitting to the way she drew his arm out of the awkward position she found it in. She curled her fingers under the base of the glove and unhurriedly, began to peel it from his hand.

She stared in rapt attention, careful not to move quickly, as if he were an ancient artifact she was undressing for the first time in a thousand years.

His arm had dropped silently to his side, his curled fingers unfolded obediently as she stripped his dressing away. He made no attempt to stop her although his heart was in his throat. He knew what she was about to see, but he couldn't bring himself to hinder her progress.

As Rin pulled the glove away, she noticed the hue of his dark skin contrasting against the porcelain of hers. She gasped abruptly, snatching her hand away as quickly as if his fully exposed hand were a venomous snake. Her hands covered her mouth, her eyes wide and shimmering in vacating tears.

His hand remained open, the slight curl of his fingers revealing the cause of her hasty retreat:

Painted nails, deep matte purple.

His palm remained open to her, though his hand quivered. The falling rain pooled in his palm, raced down his dark fingers in streams.

Through her tears, she reached her hand to his. He had noticed long before what she was only comparing now: the very same hue - down to the exact shade - colored her nails, too.

Her jaw hung open, her eyes pinpricks of shock.

She slid her fingers into his, interlocking them.

Skin touched skin, and he felt death by piercing arrow and thunderbolts of lightning. An ache so deep that it threatened to swallow him forever. As the cool sweetness of her touch soothed the burbling acid trapped within him, he felt the illimitable pang of being so close, yet unpossessing; skinned to the bone by love but knowing he could never qualify. It was the tragedy of seeing into the most hidden, fragile part of himself and finding Rin, knowing that he, wanting her, inherently demeaned her.

Breathless, she pulled their tangled hands to her face. She pressed his fingers to her shuddering lips, resting her face into their union as she cried.

"It's…"

Her voice was so hushed that he strained to hear if he was imaging her speaking. She tried again.

"… _It's_ …"

She whimpered. She couldn't make the words come.

Finding himself completely unable to speak, but his heart enflamed with the thought of consoling her, he squeezed her hand, encouraging her to continue. His first act of consciousness towards her had the opposite effect as she broke down sobbing, siding her cheek and forehead against the backside of his hand.

" _It's… really_ …" She punctuated between heavy sobs. _"It's… really… you…"_

She turned her face towards his hand and kissed every one of his nails, unable to express the depth of the bond she could plainly see he had held for her, even after all this time.

His swelling eye was swimming. He couldn't believe that he would ever see her face, hear her voice, or feel her touch in this lifetime. He had been willing to fight a war to see her through a glass darkly, to receive her touch in the way of dreams: seeing, yet never feeling.

And she was here, holding onto him, crying over him. Of course she wouldn't if she could comprehend his true identity and all his canyon of sins, but for now… her lips pulled him into the moment so recklessly that he almost believed he was that boy beneath the rocks again.

She pulled herself away, her eyes glazed in a permanent sense of disbelief. Her free hand roamed his body again, up his right side. Even beneath the weighty robe, she could feel that this side of his body felt curiously different than the other. While the left side of his body was characterized by tight coils of muscle and branching veins, this side seemed too bumpy in places and too smooth in others. Scars, perhaps? They'd have to be extensive scars.

Her mind looped in questions as she glided down his shoulder and into…

 _Nothing._

She gasped as her fingers searched the billowy fabric for something that wasn't there.

She cried out as her searching fingers pinned the empty sleeve against his side.

Her eyes widened in horror.

"Your… arm…"

The man remained unmoving, saying nothing. She kept touching his sleeve, as if not believing.

Her eyes red with new tears, she sniffled as he allowed her to search him, discovering that his arm was severed at the shoulder.

"I am so sorry…" She wept, touching the empty sleeve over and over, as if willing a new arm to grow.

With a resolve to comfort him, she stepped closer, placing both her small, milk-white hands topped with short violet nails against his chest. They slid up over his protruding clavicle, up his bare neck. Her eyes followed slowly. Fingertips tracing the thick chords of his throat, his nodding Adam's apple…

Her fingers reached his jawline, defined and angular. Once again, she felt the sensation of powerful physicality on one side and the evidence of deep woundedness on the other.

Her eyes dangled there, at the edge of his identity, the peripheries of his face. Her heart spun and fluttered, her courage coming in waves. She noticed a slight movement of his mouth, followed by a feather-light drip on her fingers.

His mouth was so contorted in grief that his lips trembled. His tears were running down her fingers.

Her fear was lost in an instant. She looked at him fully.

His raven hair fell in wet spikes over a face so twisted in anguish that it was surprising that he still wasn't making a sound. By all accounts he already looked as if he were weeping, yet no words came out. This alarmed Rin initially more than any other thing.

"Oh… Obito." She muttered with acute sympathy. She cupped the sides of his ruined face with her hands, and for the first time got a good, long look at the visage of the man her Obito had become.

He sadly analyzed her face as she looked at him, expecting to see horror, disgust, and revulsion, all things he had felt upon every occasion he had the misfortune to catch his own reflection. Reasons of identity, stealth, intimidation, and mystery were all factors of donning masks over the years, but a significant one he had never admitted to another living person was simply that he felt so hideous because of his scars that a mask seemed a mercy to him.

Instead, he saw something in her eyes that mirrored what he had also seen in Kakashi's: acute pain. He saw the fine lines around her eyes tense and vibrate as she observed his scars. Her fingers traced the spiraling folds, uneven surfaces, deep ridges. She looked like touching him was hurting her.

Her thumb soothed across the nick in his bottom lip. Her eyes crashed with an ocean of questions, her lips dripping with all the things she always wanted to say in the years since he slept beneath the boulder. The tension between the two sensations exploded within her, and all she could do was hope he saw her heart. She kept touching his face, and Obito had never seen a more heartbreaking expression in any other eyes.

"Can… Can you speak?"

The fog swirled, the rain fell, her hands moved across his face, stirring dead nerves to life again. The world drifted slowly in movement around them, Rin's eyes darted across his face like she was reading a book, her fingers tenderly skimming each line of the page, each line of his broken face.

Unable to suppress his feelings any longer, he gasped, exhaling his grief in one broken-hearted sigh. His empty eye socket streamed, his one eye attempting to place a barrier between her and him with a heavy veil of tears. Unable to make even one word, he simply pursed his trembling lips, closed his eyes, and nodded.

Awash in her own tears, she reached for him in a new way, pulling his face close to hers. Her distraught eyes forcing him to open his and drink deep of her breaking heart. She pulled his head downwards, rising up on her tip toes to place her forehead against his while she held him. Her fingers combed through his hair. He began gulping his sobs the second she drew her face in to touch his. Her needful nails raking his scalp caused an electric tingling down his spine, branching down his arm, prickling in his phantom limb, curling the fingers he didn't even have.

" _Say something_." Her voice so overwhelmed with emotion that she mostly mouthed the words, " _Please_."

Panting heavily, his heart absolutely crushed, he brought his hand warily to the side of her face, his dark-nailed fingers pressing into the soft, supple skin of her white-marble neck, his thumb cresting the top of her cheekbone. Unfocused before her was the vision of his dark-nailed thumb, stroking her face, and in focus beyond was a man who's one eye held so much pain, yet so much tenderness, that she was stricken breathless. He locked his gaze on her, and the world stood still.

"I carried you with me everywhere."

His voice cracked. Unable to continue saying another thing, he wrapped his one arm around her and cradled her softly to him.

Rin was struck dumb by his words, though they pierced her more deeply than she was ready for. She was taken aback by his voice, too. The last time she heard that voice, he was just on the verge of puberty. But she never expected that Obito, her brash, yet gentle friend, could develop a voice so raspy, so broken with pain. Regardless, she wanted to crush herself into him forever, but he held her sincerely, as if cradling the most precious, priceless thing.

"What happened to you?" She whispered, burrowing her face into the crook of his neck.

He didn't respond. He just kept his hand on the back of her head, wishing with all of his heart he could hold her with two arms. With just one, he irrationally felt as if she might slip away.

"Please, tell me…"

Obito said nothing, shaking as he held her.

"Why won't you say anything?" She wept, overcome by the man in her arms.

"I'm holding you, Rin, and you ask why I can't speak?" His breath on her neck; gooseflesh.

"You were _dead_."

He tightened his grip around her, unable to bring himself to say the same, though they both thought it.

"I'm a prisoner."

"Why? How long?"

"I don't know."

"It won't be long. They'll release you."

Her belief unnerved him, and he wondered what she knew.

"Kakashi will take care of you." He said softly, his heart caving at the admission and the implication that was clear only to himself.

"We will both take care of you." She said surely, and once more he was intimidated by her words.

They continued to hold each other, and he knew that soon, his time would be up. Not a single cell of his being longed to ever be torn away from her while simultaneously he quivered at being so close.

"I have to go, Rin."

She stood on her tiptoes, nuzzling the side of his face before putting her lips to his ear.

" _Promise me,"_ she breathed, sending chills down his body _, "Promise me that you'll come back this time. Never leave me again, Obito."_

He was stricken, she could tell by the way his body once more tensed under her touch. She whispered again,

"Every night. A thousand times I saw the boulder fall, and a thousand times, I couldn't protect you." Her voice broke tragically, she began sobbing.

"I thought I would live my entire life chasing you, each time giving more and more of myself to always see that it was never enough!" Her body racked itself as she unburdened her most hidden grief on his shoulders.

"I accepted that I would become an old woman, forever locked in a dream of trying to save the boy who saved me!"

She clutched him to herself desperately.

"I've carried _you_ with me everywhere… And I've carried the things I never said. They've eaten me alive, crawled into my head and _eaten me alive!"_

She pulled back to look at him again, his eye wide and shocked at what was tumbling from her mouth.

"Come back, Obito… Come back to me so I can start giving you a lifetime's worth of unspoken words."

Around them came the shuffling of feet as Kakashi's stalling had come to an end.

She looked deep into his heart through his eye. She reached up and touched the disfigured side of his face lovingly.

" _Promise me."_ She barely whispered.

The clinking of chains sounded as his restraint was picked up by an ANBU guard.

Her eyes never broke with his.

He reached up and took her hand, placing it over his rapidly palpitating heart. His eye never tore from hers, and with all the meaning in the world, he nodded his head, mouthing, but not speaking the words,

" _Promise."_

His gaze couldn't be severed from hers, even as he was led away. His dark hair falling into his face, he watched her as long as the fog permitted. Even after he could see her no longer, he still felt the image of her hand outstretched towards his, white robe like wet newspaper clinging to the curves of her body, eyes holding onto a promise a lifetime in the making.

Kakashi appeared beside him as he was led further down the swirling, misty path.

"One condition." Obito uttered to his old friend, "I will abide by the rules of the village under one condition."

Kakashi nodded, raindrops falling from the ends of his spiky hair.

"Rin never learns about me. About Tobi, Madara, Akatsuki, the war… She never learns about any of it. Issue a gag order if you have to, but I can't stay here if she knows."

In the same place in his chest where Obito once insisted to Kakashi that there was nothing left, a tremulous, vulnerable agony began to rise, swelling to the point of choking him.

"I will stay, but she can never know."

With a nod of understanding, Kakashi turned towards the spot where he knew Rin still stood, hidden in the fog and rain.

"Oi."

_

A/N: I'm so sorry it has literally taken me a year to update. For those sweet readers still following this story, I apologize deeply and promise that the next chapter won't take so long.

-LLH


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